LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE REIGN OF GOD 



NOT 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 



A NEW WAY {AND YET VERY OLD) TO DECIDE THE 

DEBATE BETWEEN "SCIENCE" AND 

RELIGIOUS FAITH. 



Thomas Scott Bacon. 



"Sou ecru* ij BaGtAeta." 
'THINE IS THE KINGEK^Ivl. 



' 







BALTIMORE 

TURNBULL BROTHERS 

1878. 



PREFACE. 



THE author having had this work in hand for 
three years, and having given to it all the time 
that could be spared from other and important em- 
ployments, has found certain convictions growing 
stronger with him all that time. The first is, that 
what is here presented is the true answer to the 
question pending between Christian Faith and 
Modern Science. The second is, that no modern* 
writer brings forward this truth and applies it to the 
facts. The third is, that religious doubt is wider 
spread and more threatening with every day. The 
last is, that the matter as here treated so as to antici- 
pate and remove all such misconceptions as would 
obscure the truth, is so vast as to draw into a mighty 
vortex all the other great problems of thought. He 
must therefore quite relinquish the hope of any such 
complete discussion now — must but imperfectly 
notice several of these topics, and rather remit them 

* And yet, as will be seen, it has appeared under some of the greatest 
names of old, bat not in this application. 



IV PREFACE. 

to such further discussion as may arise upon criticism 
of the present writing. 

Yet, no such matter has been knowingly passed 
over, nor anything which has been or could be used 
in argument against the writer's conclusions been 
left without what has seemed to him a sufficient 
answer. He has carefully avoided " technical ' 
words of philosophy or theology. His hope has 
been to use such plain and simple English, that all 
sensible persons could follow his meaning, and at 
the same time not to evade the deepest matters of 
truth which belong to the question. That question 
is so deep as to require much thought; but it is none 
the less practical and urgent for every man, woman 
and child in Christendom. The writer is confident 
that even if he can be proved in error, he will by 
that very process give his critics the opportunity of 
making the truth more clear and useful than it is 
now. In any case, as his labor has been one of 
simple love to Him who is " the Light of the world," 
his only wish is that it may fare as shall please and 
glorify Him. 

T. S. B. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAP. I. — Some Serious Facts and Questions. . 1 

Doubt prevailing in our Day more serious than in the 
Eighteenth or any former Century. Causes of this. 
The Arguments for Religion not religious, not posi- 
tive and aggressive; in different language from that 
of Holy Scripture ; most of all, concede the false 
Notion of a "Reign of Law. 1 ' The Reign of God as 
opposed to this. The "usual Order" of God's Works 
not the same as a "Reign of Law." Illustration of 
the Neighbors ; of a young Child. Effect of the latter 
Notion upon Prayer. Not a Question of Words. 
The essential Meaning of Law. The " Reign of 
Law" tends to Pantheism. 

CHAP. II.— The Two "Reigns" Contrasted. . 19 

The three Alternatives possible. The Reign of God 
does not deny the usual Order; has no Difficulties 
for Faith. The "Reign of Law" has; is a mere As- 
sumption. Christian Anthropomorphism. Extract 
from Melville's Sermons. 

CHAP. III.— Is this a Scientific or a Religious 

Question? 25 

Science knows nothing of History. "Book of Na- 
ture." Can Men collect the Facts for such a Con- 
clusion or reason well to it? It is not self-evident. 
How only we can know what God did in the begin- 
ning. The Question tried again from other Aspects. 



VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAP. IV. — Should it be Tried by Natural 

Theology? 36 

What is Natural Theology ? — Tested by our own 
Memory and present Thought; by the Word of God. 
True Meaning of "Word of God. 1 ' '• Comparative 
-Religion.'' Beginning of religious Thought among 
Mankind. Continuance ever since. Growth of false 
Religion. Original Truth never quite perishes. Ar- 
gument for Natural Theology from Romans i. 19, 20. 
Other Objections to it. How invented aud continued. 
Forbidden in God's Word. Latest Error of Detail. 
General ill Results and no good Effect. 

CHAP. V.— Comparative Certainty op Knowledge 

by "Science'* or by a " Word of God." . . 57 

Two general Sources of Knowledge. Compared as 
to their Subjects, Importance and Certainty. What- 
ever can be said of the Imperfection of Language 
more true of Science than of God's Word. Moral 
and spiritual Welfare the most important. God's 
Word only certain as to the spiritual, and fallible 
as to the natural? Science incomplete. God's Word 
complete. Erroneous Positions of " F. D. H." and 
others. "Make Room for all the Facts." 

CHAP. VI — Examination of Holy Scripture — 

Old Testament. . 77 

Method. A Suggestion of Numbers. Prof. Jowett's 
Rules. The Divine Story of Creation. Objections 
made to it. No Mention of a '* Reign of Law." The 
Promise of Seed-Time and Harvest, &c. The " Bow 
in the Cloud." The Patriarchs. Moses and Joshua. 
Rest of Old Testament History. Book of Job. ll A 
Decree for the Rain," <fec. Psalms. " A Decree which 
shall not pass," &c. Proverbs, &c. tk The Lord by 
Wisdom," &c. How the Early Christians understood 
this. Teaches intellectual Humility instead of Pride. 
The Prophets. "Ordinances of the Moon," &c , and 
"My Covenant of the Day," &c. Such Passages 
figurative ; many more literally declare immediate 
Divine Will and Power. 

CHAP. VIL— Examination of Holy Scripture — 

New Testament. 106 

Here, if anywhere, we shall find the " Reign of Law." 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. Vii 

Supernatural Wonders of the Nativity. The Temp- 
tation. Teachings of Our Lord. Lord's Prayer. 
Miracles of the Gospels. The Acts. St. Paul at 
Athens. The Epistles. "The Counsel of His Own 
Will." " God giveth it a Body," &c. " Where is the 
Promise of His Coming?" The entire and consist- 
ent Tenor of Holy Writ. Two opposite Ideas of 
Man's Life. "Nature." No Notice, but actual De- 
nial of the " Reign of Law " in New Testament. 
Passages of Old Testament usually cited do not 
teach it. Value of fixed Institutions of Religion. 

CHAP. VIII.— History op the Notion of a " Reign 

of Law." . .127 

Different Accounts of its Origin. Plato. First Men- 
tion of "Nature" and its "Laws." Aristotle. Lucre- 
tius. The Advent of Our Lord. Christian Study of 
Plato. St. Paul's Notice of this aotyia. 

CHAP. IX.— History Continued. . . ." 146 

Greek Philosophy again studied and admired by 
Christians. Justin Martyr. Clement of Alexandria. 
Origen. Others protesting. Augustine. Chrysostom. 
Jerome, The Dark Ages. Saracen Philosophers. 
Al Ghazel. Greek Philosophy again in Europe. Rise 
of Natural Philosophy. The Reformation. Bacon. 
Des Cartes. Later Misrepresentation of him. Spin- 
oza. Hooker. His Mistake as to " the Counsel of 
His Own Will." Per contra, other Words of bis 
which are noble and beautiful. Leibnitz. The Eight- 
eenth Century in England. " Christianity." Nine- 
teenth Century so far. Opposing Influence of the 
Church. The Book entitled the k * Reign of Law." 
Necessary Tendencies of this Notion. Virtual Admis- 
sion of this by Christlieb. 

CHAP. X. — The Question as Touching the Free 

Will of Man . .170 

Free Will a great Mystery to be received by Faith. 
A "Reign of Law" forbids this Faith. The Free 
Will of Man would destroy a " Reign of Law." The 
Writer of "The Reign of Law" claims to maintain 
the Freedom of Man, but really denies it. God 
spoken of by him as " Mind " and " Will." The Am- 
bassadors for God. 



Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAP. XL — The Same as Related to the Will 

and Love of God 180 

The Will of God is the sole Power and Purpose of 
all Things. It is profane and foolish to object to this 
as "Arbitrary." He is essentially One in Will, Love, 
Work. Some Writers approach to this great Truth, 
but fail at last to apprehend it. " Correlation of 
Forces." Illustration of a Eailway Train. The 
"Reign of Law" makes of God only an immense 
Man. 

CHAP. XII. — Effect of the Notion of a " Reign 
of Law" upon the Interpretation of Holy 
Scripture. 192 

The Theory of a remote and brutish origin of Man. 
True Account in Holy Scripture. Is that to be ad- 
justed to the New Science ? The Word of God be- 
longs to the Church of God. That does not teach 
"Science," but does teach Facts. Its Purpose is 
Faith in God. The New Method undermines Faith. 

CHAP. XIII.— This Actual Interpretation by 

Our Present Astronomy and Geology. . . 205 

We ought even to go back and re-examine what 
has been conceded as to Creation. Principles which 
should govern in such Inquiry. Unwise Concession 
of Bishop Butler as to "Natural Religion." "Cos- 
mogonies." Does our Age know too much for the 
Old Faith ? 

CHAP. XIV.— The Persecution of Galileo. Is 
the Notion of a "Reign of Law" Necessary 
to Scientific Investigation? .... 213 

That a contest between two scientific Parties. The 
Present between " Science " and obedient Faith. 
Some scientific Advance was made without the pres- 
ent Notion of "Law." One can explore the Cosmos 
as well with the Idea of the immediate Will of God, 
as of a " Reign of Law." Even if not, religious 
Truth more valuable than scientific Discovery. 

CHAP. XV. — Moral and Spiritual Effect. . . 221 
That the true Theory of the Universe which most 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



IX 



promotes our spiritual Good. The " Keign of God " 
makes men think of His Person and Love. The 
M Reign of Law " hinders such Thought. The Love 
of God the great Solution of all these Questions. 
The one Idea encourages, the other discourages 
Prayer and Praise, and Belief of Miracles. Spiri- 
tual Grace. " Interposition. " " Immutability.' 1 

CHAP. XVI.—" Special Providences." 

What does this mean? What God says of it. "Can 
we believe it?" Illustration of a Railway Accident. 



236 



CHAP. XVII.— Law 243 

This not a mere Question of Words. Primary Mean- 
ing of Law. God is the Person. New Meanings. 
Effect of these upon the Obedience of the true Law 
in Religion; in Morals. "Law of"—. "Duty." 
"Personal Government." 

CHAP. XV1IL— Results Collected. . . ' . . 259 



CHAP. XIX. — Suggestions and Remonstrances. . 267 

1st. To Plain People :— That they must not be dis- 
turbed in their Faith by what is said of "Laws of 
Nature," &c, nor pray to God and thank Him any 
the less. 2dly. To those with whom Argument from 
Holy Writ has no Force :— We have Sympathy as 
Seekers of Truth. Either dismiss the Assumption of 
a " Reign of Law," or prove it. For Truth's JSakt 
examine anew if the Christian Gospel be not Truth. 
Is it not worth while to study first why we exist? 
Without this all Life unmeaning. "Authority." 
3dly. To my scientific Fellow Christians : —The 
"Ascertained Verity" that Our Lord is coming to 
judge the World. We must do all Things in our 
41 Capacity'' as Christians. The Lord's Prayer. 

Appendix A. — Effect of Metaphysics upon Christian 

Doctrine 282 

Appendix B. — The Method of Examining Holy Scrip- 
ture pursued in this Book. 1 .... * 800 

Appendix C. — Critical Discussion of Ep. to Romans I. 

18.— II. 16, and Cor. I. and II. . 306 



X TABLE OP CONTENTS. 

Appendix D.— Detailed Review of the " Reign of Law M 

by the Duke of Argyll. . . . . . .317 

Appendix E. — Detailed Review of the " Law of Love, 
and Love as a Lav/," by Mark Hopkins, D. D., 
LL. D , &c. 348 

Appendix F.~ Reflections upon the Misuse and Mis- 
chief of Abstract Terms. 364 

Appendix G. — A Meditation upon the Eternity and 
Self-Existence of God, and the Modern Theory of 
" Conscience." . .... 373 



THE REIGN OE GOD 

NOT 

" The Reign, of Lavr." 
CHAPTER I. 

SOME SERIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 

ALL people in the Christendom of this age who 
read newspapers and new books, are thinking 
and arguing about one of the greatest of possible 
questions, viz. whether men can now rationally 
believe the Articles of the Christian faith, in what 
has at least until now seemed their plain sense. And 
since more people do now read and argue than ever 
before, and this number continually increases, and 
even now virtually includes all the people, the 
controversy never before was of such practical im- 
portance. 

There is yet another fact which increases the 

seriousness of the occasion. In any former like 

period, as for example the days of Hume or of Paine, 

the discussion was not only more than now a contest 

1 



2 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

between a few literary persons, but it was scarcely 
known to any but the men that there was any such 
contest. A little of this did indeed leak out from 
them among women and younger people ; but the 
greater seclusion of these, the continuing traditions 
of a somewhat religious education for children, the 
character of all books in their hands, whether for 
learning or amusement (even a lingering " reverence 
for youth "), kept them in almost total ignorance of 
what was said against Christian belief. It is 
altogether different now. The new freedom of 
manners, especially among the great and busy 
English-speaking people, and yet more especially 
those of America, and the restless tendency of 
modern public education to remove religion from 
schools, combine with the wonderful multitudinous- 
ness of printing and reading in our days to remove 
all these barriers. Our school-boys and school-girls 
devour as indiscriminately as their elders the news- 
papers, magazines and entertaining books of the day ; 
and these are all alive with that great question of 
faith or doubt. 

Therefore, let none of us too easily quiet our wise 
anxiety about such questions with thinking that just 
such threatenings of danger to faith have occurred 
before, and have passed away without justifying the 
alarms of the devout. Nothing can be more strange 
beyond precedent and more portentous than an 
unbelieving intelligence of the young. The very 
gateway of faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ and 
eternal life through Him is in being as a little child. 



SOME SERIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 



So, if in fact a generation is before our eyes passing 
from the best time of faith into the peculiar dangers 
as well as the special strength of active life, in blind- 
ness to that truth which is nobler and more necessary 
than all else, what can we hope for their hard and 
worldly later years ? And soon we shall all be gone, 
and they will be the teachers and examples of those 
to come after. 

The facts are as stated, whatever our account of 
them or feeling about them. The writer has taken 
special notice of them, and he finds the same impres- 
sion made upon other thoughtful observers. But 
lately, the custodian of the chief library in one ot 
our great cities said that he was anxious that in this 
debate the side of faith should be better maintained 
against its opposers. " For," said he, " doubt is 
increasing, especially among younger people ; I 
have occasion to see it here." He noticed what 
books were most called for and read with most 
eagerness and satisfaction. All our popular " periodi- 
cals " in the same way strongly reflect as well as 
powerfully affect general opinion. So, with the 
young, with those who pass for having the most 
11 culture," and even with our plainer people, grows 
the notion that this age knows too much to be as 
religious as some men used to be. 

As one of the thousand indications of this among 
the powerful people whose is the English language 
(for in these days nations are such rather by their 
common language and ideas than by governments — 
as the German-speaking and the English-speaking 



4 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

nations), observe this fact. It is now eighteen years 
since the celebrated il Essays and Eeviews " of certain 
Oxford scholars* appeared. This book was less 
notable for any force of its own, than as a symptom 
of a forcible organized effort within the Church of 
England to promote opinions as Christian, which 
would once have found no advocates among Chris- 
tians. It brought forth protests, replies and refuta- 
tions quite sufficient to counteract its arguments ; 
yet its spirit and credit are stronger this day than 
ever. 

Certainly, if there be any recent change, "science" 
is more alien to Christian faith and more contemptu- 
ous towards it than ever before among the English 
race. Even the Christian writers of science seem 
more scientific than Christian ; and the others move 
on with an assured air of triumph which is itself half 
a victory over general opinion.* 

Why is this, w T hen far the greater advantages for 
such a conflict are on the Christian side, namely, real 
' truth and the favor of God ? Some of these later 
advocates of faith are honest, acute, and eloquent; 
though it must be admitted, that for simple clearness 
of style and accuracy of language, and for that 
earnest and lively elegance in serious writing of 
which Plato is the great example, some of the 
promoters of unbelief in our age are the superiors. 
This is in no small degree the cause of their success. 
Yet, what a trifling matter that is when men are 
deciding what they will receive as true about the 
great God and their immortal destiny ! 

* H. Spencer ; Fiske's Cosmical Philosophy, &c, passim. 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 



We have reason, therefore, for saying that the 
right side of this question must have been wrongly 
handled. To say this as it were at the onset of the 
conflict — before the truth as so presented has had a 
reasonable time to have effect, would be unfair. But 
we need not and do not pass our judgment hastily. 
We should also allow much in the apparent result 
for something in the 4 will of God beyond our judg- 
ment : His purpose that sometimes these things 
shall turn out as we cannot account for them. Yet, 
the matter being so great and so threatening, let us 
all pause and ask if it may not be our duty to find 
out why this is so ; and what more, if anything, we 
ought to do. 

Is there not something wrong in the usual, not 
to say universal method in which faith is now 
defended? The present writer thinks that there are 
several points in which that method needs severely 
plain criticism. He does not mean this for a spark- 
ling diatribe, nor for a smart and captious " review.' ' 
He wishes to observe a modest deference for honor- 
able names; to keep in mind that it is of no advantage 
to truth, and but a low ambition, to arraign valuable 
writers, expressing dissatisfaction with all they say, 
and holding them to a strict account for it if they 
have not altogether " put to flight the armies of the 
aliens." 

Such a mean, unjust and barren purpose is not his, 
as will appear more fully as he proceeds. He would 
both search for and tell plainly what mistakes have 
been made in this sacred work ; and he would also 



6 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

propose something positive which he thus offers to 
the same severe criticism. The truth of God con- 
cerning the supreme welfare of man is greater than 
any man's or all men's names or sensibilities. So 
surely will all Christian thinkers agree, if now, even 
from some obscure source, should come any suggestion 
that will help in the vindication and triumph of faith. 
Of such mistakes he thinks he observes the follow- 
ing : 1st. While the argument is about religion, it is 
not religious. For instance, the name of God is 
perhaps used frequently ; but nothing indicates the 
thought of who He really is.* Now, reverence is not 
merely the absence of irreverence. Love divine is 
not a cold word to be tossed out like a counter in the 
game of debate. Language used upon these themes 
cannot be " scientific" in the sense of excluding that 
sentiment, without being false. Whatever may be 
true in other investigation about " dry light " or 
" white light," obtained by banishing all feeling, does 
not apply to this. Light and warmth, truth and 
love, are not separable here. You may separate the 
elements of vital air, then experiment upon and 
explain either one of them, and finally recombine 
them as air. But if you attempt the same process 
with the man who lives by breathing that air, and 
get soul and body apart so that you may investigate 
the latter, you no longer have the man at all, but 
some inert matter, and you never can make that 
again part of the living man. Thus, if the love of 

♦That is a profound principle of the Third Commandment, of its not 
specifying blasphemy, bu the " taking His name in vain 11 — uttering that 
sacred word without a true though of its meaning and of His person. 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 



God is excluded from thought, we shall find no light 
of truth upon these transcendent things. All our 
reasoning is mere illusion ; and while the words 
occupy us, the heavenly " things they signify " are to 
us unreal. 

This intellectual folly of the Christian li men of 
this generation,'' would indeed produce more imme- 
diate fatal effects, but by the mercy of God there is 
an actual inconsistency between it and their real life. 
They think and write and read about God as if in 
the use of reason they must keep out of sight of 
His love (which is in tendency and in inevitable 
ultimate result as if there were "no God"); yet, 
they are in fact still under the light and warmth- 
giving rays of knowledge of that love as it shines in 
the Church and in the divine Word. And yet, if there 
is anything which is, as distinguished from " accident," 
of the essence of the conception of Him on the one 
hand, and of our life on the other, it is the love of 
God. 

"Then the mind of him who has no belief in this 
Divine love is inaccessible to us in arguing for faith 
in God?" That is not so certain;* and if it were 
true, it would be much the less of the evils to choose 
between. " But this will not allow us to be logical 
with the reasoner who questions this faith, and ought 
to be answered and convinced." Then let us be 
true, even if we must cease being logical. We have 
here only one of the instances of the incapacity of 

* For while we have no right ever to omit this fact from our argument, 
even the unloving heart feels unconsciously some of its force, and its 
presence takes none of their force from other reasons addressed to the 
mere intellect. 



8 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

our reasoning faculty to deal with the highest truth.* 
If it be true that in some former age, and in a lower 
form, religious faith could exist without the idea of 
Divine love, because then ignorance and superstition 
protected it from intellectual doubts which are the 
weakness (not strength) of our age, the true correc- 
tive of these doubts now is, not more intellectual 
effort, but the vision of that Love by faith. 

That there is no such ignorant narrowing of 
thought, when we refuse to separate the love of 
God from the search of truth about Him or His 
works, may be seen for one instance in the example 
of him who is justly regarded as, more than any 
other one man, the founder of modern science,*)* 
Let any one read attentively the treatise on " The 
Interpretation of Nature," or the opening of that 
on " The Advancement of Learning," and he can but 
see that not only the language and mode of thinking 
of the writer, but his express rules for these studies, 
are opposed in this respect to the scientific method 
of our time,J of Christian writers as well as non- 
Christian, while they accord with my suggestion. 
The case is indeed very much stronger when the 
very subject of argument is, as it is not usually 
in Bacon's philosophy, though all so religious in 
spirit — truth in religion. 

(2) Our Christian " apologists " seem too literally 
apologists in the modern sense. They contend for 

* I may use here to better purpose, Dr. Newman's motto from St. 
Ambrose : " Non in dialectica complacuU Deo, salvum facer e populum 
suum."— ' k It hath not pleased God to save His people by logic. 1 ' 

t And who is the author of this very distinction of lumen siccum. 

% Perhaps this is one reason why Mr. Huxley is so jealously unfriendly 
to the great name of Bacon as a philosopher. 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 



the faith in defence, as the poor Jews in Persia were 
allowed to "stand for their life" against Hainan's 
party ; instead of moving against all opposing opinion, 
in the name of God. Their utmost courage seems 
exhausted in insisting that religion is independent 
and equal within its domain to science within its. 
They exult in proving to their own satisfaction 
that it is not irrational to believe as a Christian. 

The Word of God never speaks in that tone. It 
assumes immeasurably higher authority over all else 
that men think they know. It assumes such superi- 
ority both of certainty and importance. So far from 
asking toleration, it will not tolerate any pretended 
equality with itself. How can it but suggest un- 
reality and doubt to readers of modern defences of 
that faith, when they hear only this cold, negative 
and hesitating voice, instead of that imperative and 
victorious tone in which the Gospel speaks for itself? 
We, indeed, are not prophets and apostles, but we 
are the heralds (preachers*) of the same Divine 
proclamation, and have no right to declare it to 
others as of less than the absolute authority that it 
claims. So by example for us did its first heralds 
proclaim it alike to the most intellectual Platonist 
Greeks or the plainest rustic in Galatia. 

"But what if the only effect you have upon the 
scientific doubter is to make him smile at what 
seems to him the conceited positiveness of the 
ignorant ? " It is sorrowful to think that this is 
only so much the worse for him. The same truth 



* Kripvxsf. 



10 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

was once to just such men "foolishness"; but 
none the less did St. Paul hold it up to all men 
alike as "the wisdom of God and the power of God.' 7 

(3) It is a great defect of these writers, that not 
only in this, but in other respects, their language is 
very different from that of Holy Scripture. This 
in part includes the faults before mentioned, and 
also that which is to follow. It is also in part their 
effect. The incongruity, however caused, and whether 
observed or not, sends a chill of doubt over the 
reader. The faith and truth of God's Word are felt 
(if not seen) to be in a false position. And so the 
arguments for them, however ingenious, are in the 
main sterile. 

(4) But that which is most mischievous of all I 
have reserved for the last mention here, and it is 
the main subject of this enquiry. By the curious 
reciprocal relations and influences of what seem 
different things, and yet are only different aspects of 
the same thing — this is partly cause, partly sign, 
and partly effect of the others, and they of it. It 
is the assumption in all books of science and general 
literature of our day, and especially in all writings 
either for or against Christian faith, of something 
called " the reign of law." This is the hinge of the 
whole present controversy. It is the very chosen 
ground upon which the forces of unbelief form their 
line of battle, and upon which the soldiers of faith 
have descended to construct their defensive positions 
and make what resistance they can to the onset. 

It is the purpose of the following discussion to 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 11 

show that this is a fatal error: that the "reign of 
law " is a mere gratuitous assumption, unproved 
and impossible of proof, indeed, contrary to our best 
reason, and to absolute and certain truth as God has 
uttered it directly to men. It is one of the signs of 
how far we have all drifted from older and wiser 
ways of thinking, that one of the latest and most 
generally accepted defences of Christian faith against 
doubt, bears this very title, " The Eeign of Law." 
As the danger of such false notions often lies in 
their concealment under ambiguous terms, it is 
fortunate that a well-meaning opposer of unbelief, 
whose position makes his example a very conspicuous 
one, has thus exposed so plainly the real character 
of the popular error, and given us the occasion to 
contrast it with the Divine truth in this title : " The 
Eeign of God not ' The Eeign of Law.' " 

Upon fair and patient study .of the whole matter, 
we shall find that this imagined truth, which is 
assumed to be the highest achievement of man's 
thought as well as the guide and bond of all further 
acquirement, is a delusion — a murky cloud of 
falsehood, hiding from mankind in proportion as it 
prevails, all the bright heavens and the vision of 
the Divine ; blinding faith, checking prayer and 
chilling love. Then until this is removed, we need 
go no further to find why our arguments do not stop 
the advance of unbelief. Yet the notion is so strongly 
intrenched in all the language of our age, allowed 
on all hands, and perhaps until now disputed by no 
one within our knowledge, that we must agree to 
sit in trial upon it patiently as well as courageously. 



12 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

It is indeed most true that God in His love towards 
mankind does all things around us in a usual order, 
and gives us an instinct of confidence in this ; so 
that we may exercise forethought about our present 
life, and lay up from generation to generation, in- 
creasing stores of knowledge about the material 
creation. That is one thing; but it is very far from 
the same as that notion of a " reign of law " which 
I condemn. The former no way confines the abso- 
lute will of God, or our apprehension of it in faith, 
prayer or grateful love. The latter of necessity 
does. If I had a poor neighbor who needed every 
night to pass a dark and dangerous place near me, 
and I, knowing this, always placed my house-lights 
so that they would show him past the danger, and 
also informed him of this arrangement, that would 
be no sort of obligation of law to me, but none the 
less useful to him. It would not abridge my freedom 
in my own affairs, nor my right to change this 
custom for other purposes or in any emergency ; nor 
my liberty, at my neighbor's request, to remove the 
light for special occasions, when that would be more 
for his advantage. It would not check his coming 
to make this request of me, especially if I had in- 
vited him to knock at my door at any time upon 
such errands and promised him a favorable hearing. 
(There can be no question that this would more 
promote affectionate feeling between the two parties 
than if the light on the poor man's way was pro- 
vided by law.) 

The theory of a reign of law is entirely different 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. IB 

This orderly movement is no longer the immediate 
will of One who is love, but the revolution of a vast 
and complicated machine, which must not be inter- 
fered with. It suggests doubt of anything which is 
proposed to our religious faith as having occurred, 
or yet to be, but which is contrary to this invariable 
order. The Holy Scriptures speak to us of prayer 
and miracles without proposing or acknowledging 
any such element of doubt. 

It is with them as when a young child, who 
admires his father for all that is noble in a man, and 
regards him with happy love, asks him for something. 
The only question in his mind of obtaining his re- 
quest is, whether his father has it to give ; or, if that 
be so, whether he will think it really good for him. 
There is no notion of some other restraint upon the 
giver's good will, which checks the impulse of asking, 
or the hope of obtaining when he does ask. 

So, and far more so, it would seem that a devout 
Christian would always pray to a Father in heaven 
for what he wanted, with simple readiness and confi- 
dence. So in the Holy Scriptures good men are 
always represented as doing. So, in fact now some 
religious people do, especially if their reading is 
only religious. But it has somehow come to pass 
that for other persons than these, there seems 
interposed between the suppliants on earth and the 
ever blessed God in heaven, something beside His 
gracious will and power. (This is not as when a 
sublime poetical prophet has said,* " Tour iniquities 

* Isaiah lix. 2. 



14 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

have separated between you and your God." That 
hiding of His face from us is, we know as Christians, 
removed by pardon, when we pray with repentance 
and faith in our Lord.) It is conceived of as some- 
thing outside of our spiritual condition, and outside 
of the immediate will of God for the occasion. It 
seems to require of Him in granting our requests, 
something more than simple will to do what we ask : 
that He must first set aside what would otherwise 
occur — must "interpose" in movements otherwise 
taking place without His special notice. 

Now, whether or not we suppose this notion a 
new truth gained by our intelligence, when it comes 
into the simple religion existing before and held 
forth in the Holy Scriptures, its effect is of necessity 
very great. It is as would be the addition to our 
atmosphere of any new element, however attenuated 
or imperceptible to ordinary sense, in interrupting 
the solar heat and light upon which all terrestrial 
life depends. This new element of the soul's atmo- 
sphere in our day is the notion of "laws of Nature " 
or a " reign of law." It is such an interposing 
medium, not only as to prayer, but as to all faith in 
things spiritual; as to quiet confidence in God's care 
and mercy, notwithstanding what would otherwise 
make us anxious and afraid ) as to gratitude when 
we escape dangers or receive blessings ; as to faith 
in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ into this 
world to save mankind, as "approved by signs and 
wonders"; as to all such marvellous things related 
in our Holy Book, and so witnessing that it is God's 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS 15 

Word; and as to any knowledge of God and all the 
heavenly things, with glory and joy in them by hope. 

Let us consider well that this effect is produced 
not merely upon the readers of scientific books. It 
flows out into the " light reading" of the many, and 
into the atmosphere of general opinion ; and it 
reaches almost every man, woman and child. It 
thus not only helps to deaden the spiritual sensi- 
bility of all, but also creates a general impression 
that when battle is joined between the admired 
leaders of " modern thought " and those who present 
themselves as champions of Christ's religion, these 
latter do not get the best of it. And what if their 
failure is not in being " unscientific," but in trying to 
be scientific ? 

Any way, this mischief is immeasurable. What 
advantage gained can be imagined to compensate 
this? It keeps men unhappy in spite of the very 
grace of God. It tends to reduce the Christian 
lands to worse than heathenism — to an % irreligion in 
which the divine and spiritual has no acknowledg- 
ment; which would be a frightful degradation, spite 
of all the books, and arts and sciences left. Liter- 
ally it casts off fear of the good God, and restrains 
prayer to Him. It defrauds our Lord the King of 
Glory of His salvation of mankind. 

Fellow-Christians, would it not be good if we 
could dismiss from all belief an opinion so baleful in 
result? Even if you are so constituted or so envi- 
roned by other influences that you are not affected 
by it in that fatal way, would you not be glad for 



16 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

the sake of these others, if it could be given up with- 
out sacrifice of truth? Well, it was once unknown. 
Many generations of thoughtful men lived and died 
without it, and this includes all the Apostolic Chris- 
tians. Let us then carefully examine its claims to 
belief. 

[The just force of this argument will fail to reach 
my reader's mind if he conceives of it as a mere 
"question of words." For instance, if he assumes 
that a "reign of law" may be and really is in the 
effect of its use the same as the reign of God, which 
all Christians in terms maintain. I must therefore 
here by anticipation give warning against this mis- 
take, and state briefly about this what I shall more 
fully show in its best place, later in this enquiry. 
1st. God having chosen, or rather created this word 
law to tell man of his duty and obedience — if we 
appropriate it to some other use, we confuse our 
apprehension of that spiritual truth which is the 
knowledge most necessary for us and most divinely 
certain. 

Beyond question it is more important for each of 
us to have a strong and true sense of law as what 
we are to do in obeying God, than as to what passes 
around us in the world of matter and force. Now 
the first (and as we shall yet see the only true) sense 
of that word implies two wills, one commanding and 
one obeying. Thus one who has that right to 
command says, " Thou shalt love (Me) the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart." This is the commanding 
will. I apprehend this and love Him. That is the 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 17 

obeying will. Or I disobey, and so far as I do am 
guilty. Yet, without freedom for this guilty disobe- 
dience there is no real law. The same applies to 
human law, and therefore and because all such 
rightful law is really by His authority, He allows 
us this, and only this, secondary use of the word law. 
To employ it in the account of mere cause and effect 
in things which have no will or choice, is a figure of 
speech which, as long as it is understood to be merely 
such (as is such use of it in Holy Scripture), is good. 
But when it becomes " philosophy," and is treated 
as if it were the highest literal truth to which we 
must adjust our religious thought, it will only 
weaken the primaiy and necessary force of the term 
as to our obedience of God. 

2d. This enquiry is not useless as being only a 
"question of words" in the sense that a " reign of 
law " is precisely " the reign of God." Man is dread- 
fully astray for all his real life and destiny, except 
as our Lord in His Gospel rescues him. This de- 
pravity consists in separation from God, and aversion 
to the true thought, and so from the love of Him. 
Instead of this glorious life of love in which his 
greatest joy is that God talks with him, when now 
he hears His voice he hides himself in the trees of 
the garden. Even after he is by Christ's salvation 
set in the right way, he is continually tempted from 
it to false thoughts of God as well as to false ways 
of willful disobedience. Once and everywhere on 
the earth this temptation was in the notion of 
11 gods many." Now and in Christendom it is in 
words which pretend religion without its reality. 



18 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

This flatters human vanity, by persuading us that 
we have come to think so profoundly and vigorously 
that we have got beyond the common idea of God as 
a person. Sometimes it is in fancying that we have 
discovered, not that God is all, but that All is God. 
As one aspect of the Divine is greatness, we gratify 
the pleasure of thought about this by contemplating 
the vastness of creation, and then persuade ourselves 
that this is adoring the Creator — that the total ot 
what God has made is God ; which is really one way 
of saying that there is no Creator and no God. 

Or, short of this false dogma, we may give our 
attention only to this "Nature," and say that "the 
heavens declare its (or her) glory "; and by such 
personifying and deifying of "Nature," refuse to 
behold the only living and true Person. Or we may 
make a like false use of any abstraction or adjective, 
and talk only of "Mind," "Will," "the True," "the 
Eight," " the Good," and so get rid of real religion. 
It is of precisely the same effect to attribute power 
and government to any abstract word, as to say 
that " Law " reigns, instead of that God reigns. If 
we mean the latter, why do we not say it and not 
the other, which promotes atheism in those who 
are inclined that way, and obscures the light of 
this glorious truth to the religious. No, it is not an 
idle question of words which is involved in this 
proposition, " The reign of God not the reign of 
law." The other great spiritual consequences which 
help to prove the truth of what is here maintained, 
also enhance its importance, as will appear later in 
the discussion.] 



THE TWO " REIGNS " CONTRASTED. 19 

CHAPTER II. 

THE TWO " REIGNS'' CONTRASTED. 

TTTE are making this enquiry now as Christian 
VV believers. (How we might argue about it 
with others is another thing, and will receive brief 
notice in the final suggestions). As such, we know 
that God is absolute, eternal and almighty, and that 
of His will only He made all else that exists, to 
begin that existence. We can suppose of the Creator 
after this act of creation, one of these three things : 
either (1) that all continuance of being and all 
movement is the actual direct power of God, just as 
was the creation ; or (2) that with the creation He 
gave a self-existence to what He had made, and 
established a force or forces, as a man adjusts the 
spring of a watch, which would then of itself work 
all the life and movement we see, either forever, or 
for any time He limited. We may then declare that 
these movements are " laws of nature," as imperative 
as laws of moral conduct and religion given to men, 
and even more fixed, necessary and invariable. But 
to this we may add that God has reserved to Himself 
the power to suspend or act contrary to these laws 
at rare intervals, by miracles, for His own special 
purposes ; or (3) we may say that we know only 
that all things were created by God and exist accord- 
ing to His will, but that He has told us no more, and 
it would be presumptuous folly for us to think that 



20 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

we could by any " searching find out God" in so 
great a matter. This last of the three alternatives 
amounts practically to the first, and may appear in 
the course of this enquiry to involve it of necessity. 

The real question then lies between the first and 
second. As the latter assumes the notion of the 
" reign of law," so we may distinguish the idea of 
the former as the reign of God. As has been already 
suggested, it would be a great mistake to suppose 
that this involves a denial of that usual order of 
events upon which all our calculation and science are 
based. When God has planted in my soul the in- 
stinctive faith, and confirmed it with His own 
gracious promise, that these things shall follow one 
another in the order I observe in them now, (except 
upon some extraordinary occasions which the same 
gracious love will find for doing us more good in 
another way), have I any reason for distrusting this 
because He does each of these things in person, instead 
of by a huge machine set in motion 6000 or 60,000 
years ago, or because I do not (and cannot) suppose 
that He ever manacled His most blessed and glorious 
omnipotent will by some "laws " to that effect? Is 
not divine love and truth security enough for man's 
calculations ? If not, what " laws " or forces could 
ever give me rational confidence ? 

This idea of " the reign of God " has no difficulties 
for faith, either as regards prayer or miracle. That 
God usually sustains all things and does me good in 
a regular succession of acts which I can calculate 
upon, does not hinder His doing any other thing 



THE TWO "REIGNS" CONTRASTED. 21 

which I pray for, or any " great wonder " to give 
witness to His word. Nor does it impair my power 
to believe in these things, or to expect them accord- 
ing to His promise. His giving what I ask may fall 
within this regular working (whether within the 
view of my calculating forethought or beyond it), or 
it may not. Th'e one is as easy for Him as the other, 
and as possible for me rationally to believe. The 
only thing for me in either case, is to be pleased and 
grateful whatever answer He makes to my prayer. 
And so if He presents a miracle to my faith, I can 
at once recognize it by its spiritual as well as its 
sensible signs, and simply believe. 

It is entirely different with the notion of a " reign 
of law." To grant my prayer or perform a miracle? 
requires then, at least in my thought, that a vast, 
immensely complicated mechanism shall be deranged, 
or that even this mechanism shall be immensely 
more complicated (which is the favorite device of 
our modern writers to " reconcile " prayer and 
miracle with mechanical " law " in all things). In 
this last case it is still the machine working, and not 
God graciously willing. The true spiritual idea of 
prayer, or of the immediate power of God in a 
miracle, is thus made very difficult, if not impossible 
to 6e conceived.* 

It is true that those who speak of u laws of nature " 
do not agree in what they mean by the term ; and 
some of them say that they do not mean this mechan- 

*I shall consider later and at length, the reply which may he made to 
this, that as all events and actions are really always present to the 
Absolute One, it is as easy for Him to arrange His "laws of nature" 
for all the apparent interferences, as without them. 



22 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE HEIGN OP LAW." 

ism. But we must deal with the actual notion it 
conveys to most people, with its meaning as the 
popular authors write* and people read, and with the 
necessary tendency of thought in the words used. There 
is such a tendency in this use of " law " which no 
explanation can stay and no warning neutralize. It 
is a most remarkable instance of how some " words 
are things." It makes us think of God as limited in 
His power and love. 

Upon what proof then is this "reign of law" 
believed? None whatever. It is a mere assumption. 
One may look in vain in the writers who reason upon 
it, either for or against religious faith, for any such 
proof, f They say " it is plain," or " it is admitted,^ 
&c. They seem to suppose that no thoughtful person 
could ever think otherwise. Whereas, some of the 
wisest men that ever lived have held to the " reign 
of God" in incessant immediate power, as I now 
maintain it. One writer says that this true and 
glorious idea would " deny the immutability of God," 
and give up the universe to chaotic chance.J Others 
say that it is treating divine will as " capricious," and 
without intelligence. All this is mere begging of the 
question. It really proceeds from a wrong notion, 
that we can argue and decide about what God must 
do, from human nature. 

*For example, " The Reign of Law. 1 ' 

+ What comes nearest to such argument will be examined later. The- 
"Reign of Law," pp. 63-64, appears to set out upon the proof, but soon 
abandons it. The eloquent rhapsodies of Hooker and Montesquieu are 
not reasonings, yet they are fairly examined in Chapter IX. 

JThis astonishing position is taken by one of the writers in the 
Christ. Ev. Society's series. What is the writer's idea of kl immuta- 
bility"? As immovability, or mere mechanism? 



THE TWO "REIGNS" CONTRASTED. 23 

It is strange that Christians will commit this folly, 
when not only does our best reason expose it, but 
His own voice speaking from heaven says, " My 
ways are not your ways." Even unbelievers some- 
times see this and object to the " anthropomorphism " 
of Christians.* From this proceed also two other 
notions, which may be now in the minds of my 
readers, obstructing their correct judgment in the 
argument which is to follow, viz, that at the crea- 
tion, God must have set up this mechanical " reign of 
law," first, because it would be an economy of force ; 
and secondly, because a foreseeing " mind " would 
naturally provide for its plans in that way. We 
forget that this, which is true enough of our poor 
little forethought, will and power, has no sort of 
application to one with whom all is independence 
and eternity. For since He, and He alone, is literally 
infinite, without bounds in any direction, His power 
is not merely inexhaustible, but is not lessened by any 
action or all actions. So his knowledge, attention, 
and love (let us not forget that) are no more tasked 
(and need no more spare themselves) by the instant 
creation of all things in each successive moment of 
time, than they were six thousand years ago, nor than 
if they were allowed sixty thousand years for the 
process. Language indeed fails before this ineffable 
contemplation. So also let our reasoning keep silence 
when it sets out to say what God must have done. 

Therefore, so far as we have proceeded, it is plain 
that we may take up this enquiry unprejudiced by 

* See Lewes 1 Aristotle, p. 86. Fiske's Cosmical Philos. pp. 393, 422. 
Oh that they were as wise otherwise ! 



24 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

any presumption in favor of a "reign of law." 
We will do well also to understand that what I 
maintain now is far from being a new notion, set 
against the belief of all the past. There have been 
many just such protests in substance, against the 
ideas of " laws of nature" and their "reign," made 
by wise and devout men in past ages. I only place 
here some sentences from the noble sermon of Henry 
Melville upon " the continual agency of the Father 
and the Son."* 

" But is not our philosophy as defective as our 
theology, so long as we thus give energy to matter 
and make a deity of nature? # * * * I do not 
believe it the result of properties which, once im- 
parted, operate of themselves, that vegetation goes 
forward and verdure mantles the earth. I rather 
believe that Deity is busy with every seed that is cast 
into the ground, and that it is through its immediate 
agency that every leaf opens and every flower blooms. 
I count it not the consequence of a physical organi- 
zation — the effect of a curious mechanism which, 
once set in motion, continues to work — that pulse 
succeeds to pulse and breath follows breath : I rather 
regard it as literally true that in God 'we live and 
move and have our being,' that each pulse is but the 
throb, each breath the inspiration of the ever present, 
all actuating Divinity. Away with the idolatry of 
nature ! Nature is but a verbal fiction invented to 
keep out of sight the unwearied acting of the Great 
First Cause." 

♦Melville's Sermons, vol. I, p. 287 : Philadelphia. 



IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 25 

CHAPTER III. 

IS THIS A. SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 

MY fellow-Christians, some who disclaim that 
title say that we Christians do not love 
truth, but in all these discussions only follow our 
prejudices. And some who share the honor of that 
name with us, insist that we cannot be honest and 
candid seekers of God's truth unless we concede 
certain postulates of those others. These postulates 
are that there are " laws of nature " ; and that we 
must adjust our faith in the Holy Scriptures, in the 
miracles related by them, and in the duties and 
results of prayer to God, to this " reign of law," 
(t. e. in effect the reign of such " laws " as our 
present science claims to have proved) or give up 
that faith. We will therefore first seek the truth 
about this claim, and find out whether there are 
any such laws which have any sort of relation to 
our faith. 

It is generally agreed among Christian believers, 
whether scientific or not, that some truth is religious 
and some natural ; and that religion does not teach 
the latter, nor science the former. Accepting this 
as substantially true,* in which of these divisions 
of knowledge shall we look for the truth about the 



* If any object to the term ''natural " thus used, they are welcome to 
substitute any other which will define what so many are ready enough, 
to insist that religion has no business with. 

3 



26 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

supposed " reign of law " ? — in other words, is it a 
scientific or a religious question ? Is it something 
about God? Is it something about what He willed 
and did before there was a man to observe any of 
His works? Undoubtedly it is. Then just so un- 
doubtedly it is a question of religious knowledge. 

But on the other hand, suppose it be suggested 
that as this question relates to what we know by 
our senses, and what comes under our observation 
and reasonings, it therefore belongs also (for this is 
the utmost that could be claimed) to our science. 
Even this is disproved by reflection. For science, 
as its greatest proficients insist, knows nothing of 
history :* that is, of a free will, if there be such a 
thing, and its actions ; of what any person (and 
surely least of all, what the Great One) has done 
in the measureless past. It knows only phenomena, 
things actually occurring in a usual order since men 
began to observe them. 

God's creation of all things from nothing, or His 
making any fixed regulation for existence since, or 
imposing laws upon Himself for its mode of con- 
tinuance, or for what He should will to do in it or 
with it, whatever of this may be thought true, 
is alike outside of the scientific knowledge. 

To tell about a "Book of Nature" delivered to 
men by God, as much as His book of Holy Scripture, 
and in which, as well as in that Scripture, He informs 
them of Himself, is of no force in this argument. So 

*Its modern votaries are in fact attempting history in their geology, 
astronomy and studies of animal and vegetable life; but this is their 
44 unscientific " folly. 



IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION ? 27 

far as this language is not the imagination of some 
good men to express in a lively way their gratitude 
for the pleasure such studies give them, and as 
illustrating how a soul (if already devout) will 
behold His power, glory and love in all His wonderful 
works of ordinary nature — the notion of a "Book of 
Nature " teaching us all about God as His real Word 
does, is dangerous nonsense. In many lamentable 
instances, the most scientific of men have studied the 
11 Book of Nature " only to disobey the blessed Gospel 
of our Lord, and even become atheists. 

By what reasoning from present science can men 
know how God made, and continues this incalculable 
multitude of existences and processes which we call 
11 nature " ? Allow human investigation the largest 
possible present achievement,and it does not yet know 
the thousandth part of the facts for such a conclusion. 
And if it had all the facts, it is most probable that 
human intelligence is incapable of the necessary 
generalization. Let me calmly reflect upon what a 
single "day brings forth": upon the amount and 
variety of movement on this earth alone between 
one sunrise and another; the vast total of visible 
life, from mosses to men ; the amazing multitude of 
creatures invisible to our ordinary sight f the flowing 
of water-currents and tossings of oceans; the atmo- 
spheric movements — vapors, storms and currents; 
the solar and planetary influences upon our globe ; 
and all this penetrated and affected by the free wills 
of a thousand millions of men. Consider how all 
these act upon one another in countless and incessant 



28 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

variations. Multiply this by the days of a year 
then by all the ages since creation; Add to this 
what we may conjecture of the immense space in which 
our earth is so little, and of the multitude of " worlds " 
which move in it. Augment the calculation by such 
a glance over the eternal future as the Eternal One 
must have ever before Him. 

No less a collection- of facts than all this must 
human science have before it, to establish as one of 
its true conclusions, that God in the creation set up 
a "reign of law." Even-then it is not wise to believe 
that one of us creatures, were he the " wisest and 
brightest," or all of us together, could comprehend 
these particulars in one consistent view, and demon- 
strate " the knowledge of God's ways," as by "laws 
of nature" instead of His incessant and immediate 
will. Indeed, so far as I know, no such demonstration 
has been attempted. 

It is always assumed as something already proved, 
or self-evident; and as so admitted by all men as a 
matter of course. It is not, that I am aware of, 
stated as self-evident. For that, it must needs be one 
of those propositions which, when put in words, 
every one agrees to at once: as that the whole of 
anything is greater than any part of it. On the 
contrary, this notion of the " reign of law " when 
presented to my mind (and many others) is evidently 
false. If it is said to be already proved to better 
informed men, whose discoveries I ought to accept, 
I can only do this reasonably upon such scrutiny of 
their proof as I now attempt. The argument already 



IS THIS A SCIENTIEIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 29 

pursued hardly leaves worn to think that any such 
proof is possible, short of direct information from 
the Eternal Creator Himself. 

Every just reflection then remits this question 
to the province of religion — to what God has 
chosen to tell mankind in words of Himself, as well 
as of their relations to Him. If it be true that 
He in creation set up certain natural forces to 
continue automatically until He removed them, 
or bound Himself by certain " laws " to carry on all 
this life and movement in an invariable way, then 
this is a truth of religion, and not of science. It is 
to be examined and proved as other religious truth 
is. Then, if so established, science may, within its 
domain, ascertain for us specially what those laws 
are ; and we may decide upon the proof of these in 
detail, and as to how they relate to our religious 
faith. 

This is a very weighty conclusion and draws great 
consequences with it. Let us study it from every 
point of view to make sure of the truth, and to give 
that truth all the clearness and force possible. The 
first thing is to decline assuming such " laws of 
nature" and their "reign," because all the great 
writers of our time do. It is proof which we want 
and must have. Have mankind " by searching 
found out God " in this respect ? If some one 
asserts that He has so made man and the cosmos 
around him, that he may (and with the purpose 
that he should) discover such "laws," let them 
prove that. Is it so proved from God's own Word? 



30 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

I am not aware that any one affirms that. On the 
contrary, we shall see in Chapters VI. and VII. 
that not a trace of it is found in Holy Scripture, 
but the opposite in the precise words of many 
passages, and in thousands of others by most plain 
implication. 

Or is it claimed upon the theory so often rashly 
insisted upon in the details of science, that a theory 
to which all facts so far discovered agree, is itself a 
demonstrated fact ? Surely no one who will ponder 
the vastness of such an inference in this case, com- 
pared with the immeasurable littleness in proportion 
of our accumulated facts, (or what we think so now,) 
can at once be sure of that. Indeed, all these facts 
really agree at least as well with the idea of the 
immediate will and power of God. Especially con- 
sidering the rash vanity of the human mind, which 
is such an infirmity in confusing its perceptions even 
of far inferior truth, shall we not take time to see 
whether this notion of " law in nature," etc., may 
not be rather some of that false " wisdom by which 
the world knew not God," than something which He 
is teaching us in His works? 

Again : there is a question of what God did u in 
the beginning," — of how He did it. From whom can 
we have knowledge about this ? Surely from none 
but Himself. There was no human witness. If 
there could have been, he could not have compre- 
hended what hp saw. God has indeed given to man 
some verbal account of this creation ; but He has 
not added to this the suggestion that His creature 



IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 31 

could only understand this thirty centuries after- 
ward by scientific studies of the existing order of 
nature, and even add to it the greater fact which He 
did not directly reveal, of a "reign of law." He 
has said no such thing in all his later written Word, 
even by sayings upon earth of Him who is in person 
the Word of God, and when it was perfected in the 
New Testament. But this He has said : " Canst 
thou by searching find out God ? . . . Who is this 
that darkeneth counsel by words without know- 
ledge? . . . Where wast thou when I laid the foun- 
dations of the earth? declare if thou hast under- 
standing ? . . . Knowest thou it because thou wast 
then born, or because the number of thy days is 
great?" (Job xi. 7; xxxviii. 2, 4, 21.) xind if we 
have ventured to make positive assertions about such 
things from what we have observed or conjectured, 
our best reason responds in the penitent confession 
of that man of great thought, the patriarch Job : 
11 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? 
Therefore have I uttered that I understood not: 
things too wonderful for me which I knew not." 
(xlii. 3.) It is but sober reason for us to conclude 
that we can no more discover the method of the 
innumerable and immeasurable works of God, by 
tracing backwards out of its millions of processes 
some few which we seem to understand, than we 
could have comprehended and stated it at the be- 
ginning, if eye-witnesses then. 

Or suppose the thoughtful Christian to try the 
question by the following method. We may proceed 



32 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT u THE REIGN OF LAW." 

in either of these two directions, viz. 1st. What is 
knowledge in religion ? and is this a question of that 
knowledge ? Or, 2d. What is science ?■ and is this 
a question of that kind ? Either one of these investi- 
gations should be a true test; and each must surely 
give the same result, for all truth is consistent with 
itself. We try them both in turn. 

1. Religious truth certainly, at the least, includes 
all we know or can know about God. Therefore 
the proposition that God at creation set up an inva- 
riable system of law for all matter and life, which 
continues unbroken, unless in some very rare excep- 
tions ; or that He infused into this material creation 
a force or forces which were to remain in it and 
constitute its existence and motion afterwards — or 
that He bound Himself by such " laws of nature " — 
this in either of its forms is a statement about God, 
of what He did or does. Therefore, if true, it is a 
truth of religion. Is there any escape from this 
conclusion? I see none. 

Or, 2dly, What is science as distinguished from 
religion ? That is, what is its province? its field of 
investigation? its possible achievement? Certainly 
the facts of the "cosmos " around us — intellectual as 
well as material, if you please — but only that : the 
succession and (apparently and ordinarily) invariable 
connection of its events, whether you call them 
causes and effects, forces and motions, or life, or 
even "laws of nature." But whether there was 
something else before this present order of" nature " 
began, or how or when it began, (that is, creation) 



IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 33 

is entirely beyond the range of science. It knows 
nothing before that order — nothing beyond it.* 

The same man may indeed see God and His will 
by religion, and also learn about " nature " by 
science. He may connect the two in his thoughts, 
and illuminate the science by the religion. But 
none the less all this knowledge of God, including 
that of creation and of Divine power in existence 
and life, came to him in the way of religion and not 
of science. 

Follow any scientific investigation to the farthest 
conclusions and widest generalization, and what 
do we come to at last ? A true vision of God at 
creation, arranging a mechanism or limiting His 
own will for the future? Do we then hear a divine 
voice telling this, or find an inscription recording 
it? No, we have our chain of successive facts, and 
nothing more. 

If indeed there were no revelation from God 
about creation, we might venture beyond real scien- 
tific research into some conjectures from it as to the 
beginning. But what presumption it> would be to 
compare them in importance or certainty to such a 
revelation, or to adjust its meaning to them ! 

Suppose that we here venture upon some such 
speculation, taking the fact (as now believed by us 

*It really knows nothing of that order as existing before its observa- 
tions be^in, certainly not before the histories and traditions of men. 
It may learn of this preceding period from a Word of God, or may 
conjecture it in details, by reasoning that the first known facts being 
the results of processes now in action, it can trace them backwards for 
vast periods of our time, and really indefinitely. But this is at the 
utmost conjecture. It will be fully discussed later in observations upon 
the relation of such theories to the Word of God. See Chaps. V. and X. 



84 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

all) of universal gravitation of matter. Let us 
pursue its instances everywhere in one direction to 
the parts of microscopic insects — the motes floating 
in our air, and the most attenuated element of that 
air ; in the other, to all the vast uncounted spheres 
that move in the yet immeasurably vaster space 
into which our great telescopes pierce. Suppose- 
that we compare this with heat, electricity, chemical 
affinity and all other imagined forces; that with the 
most grand conjecture we reduce them all to one by 
correlation, and presume the conservation of this in 
a total that never varies, however much it appears 
in changing proportions of these forms. What 
then ? 

We have now really gone somewhat beyond fact, 
and knowledge into the region of imagination. But 
suppose this brilliant guess to be yet turned into as. 
much demonstration as is now allowed by all to the 
" law of gravitation." What then ? We have 
ascertained one force which represents all motion : 
that is, we have one word for it, and that is all. For 
what is this force ? Is it a living thing which moves 
of itself? Then it is a person and a will. And with 
all this omnipresence and omnipotence it is a god ; or 
rather, we who know the true religion, must say the 
One and Only God. And as we know Him to be the 
Spirit who is love and truth, we see that the one 
force is Himself, working incessantly and immediately 
by His mere will. (This is indeed not an argument 
for those who say that they do not know the being 
of that Person, unless and except so far as it is- 



IS THIS A SCfENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 35 

proved from " nature." Unfortunately, it is the 
fashion of all philosophic writing now to allow this 
primary atheism. Whereas, the true reason of man 
is to recognize the personal being of the Eternal 
One as the first and necessary fact in our knowledge.) 
Let us agree then, that if and when science gets 
to the fact of the one force , its own force is exhausted, 
and it has only again come in sight of the essential 
truth with which all knowledge begins. Then, if it 
will be rational, it cannot expect religion to learn 
anything from it, but can only be the humble pupil 
and servant of religion. It can no more answer the 
religious question now before us, in asserting that 
the force of nature is some mechanism created and 
set in motion before any history or observation of 
man — that is, previous to the very fixed order which 
it explores — than it can reveal what existed a thou- 
sand centuries before that. 



60 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

CHAPTBE IV. 

SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY "? 

"T~YT~HAT then is the true method of investigating 
VV this religious question? Our later Christian 
writers (all of them, I think) assume that the first pro- 
cess of religious inquiry is by what they call " natural 
theology." This assumption is as irresponsible as it 
is universal. It is not noticed in the ancient creeds 
of the Church ; not, that I am aware of, recognized in 
any confessions of faith, articles of religion, or other 
symbols of the main divisions of our later Christen- 
dom. It stands merely by the authority of certain 
great names among the writers of the last three 
centuries,* and is properly subject to the same free 
examination as all other matters of opinion. If true, 
it will be the stronger and more useful for the 
scrutiny j if false, it is not a harmless or unimportant 
error in regard to our present inquiry. 

Let one of these later writersf represent them all 
in substance. In arguing against " modern doubt," 
he labors with some obscurity and not a few self- 
contradictions, to show that there is something called 
"philosophy" or "natural theology," from which 
every human soul first gets religious knowledge. 

*This is the simple fact as to our English people. Of course I am 
aware that the phrase and something meant by it may be found in Chris- 
tian literature for ages before that, and was a part of the technical the- 
ology of the l * schoolmen." 

t" Modern Doubt and Christian Belief/ 1 by Dr. Theodore Christlieb, 
p. 128 and passim. 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 37 

Then he says that " revelation merely steps in to its 
aid, setting up, as it were, landmarks for necessary 
guidance in the region of moral and religious 
thoughts, etc." 

According to this then, we ought now first to apply 
to "natural theology," to find whether the " reign of 
law " is a true " religious thought." After that, 
"revelation may merely step in to its aid," to make 
its truth or falsity the plainer. But there lies before 
us an earlier question yet, and that is, as to the truth 
of this whole idea of natural theology. 

That idea is, that each soul of us begins to know 
God by reasoning from what we perceive of our own 
thoughts and of " nature " around us. Every man, 
woman or child is supposed at some time to reason 
thus : " There is a cause of everything; there is one 
cause of all — this is a person whom we know of by 
the name of God, and judge His general character to 
be according to the Christian idea." So it follows 
that only after this "natural theology" is received 
into our minds, can we learn something more of Him 
by His direct u revelation " to us, and what we are 
to Him and are to do toward Him. The general 
opinion of these Christian writers seems to be that- 
but for man's fall from original innocence, this 
"natural theology" would have been religious know- 
ledge enough for him without any " Word of God." 
So, to strengthen or restore Christian faith in any 
soul, (why not to teach it to one who had never 
heard of it before ?) ; to prove any truth of religion, 
the process must always be in this order, first 
" natural theology," then "revelation." 
4 



38 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

Bat is it a fact that you or I, or any one else, so 
far as we know, begins first to think of God after 
such reasonings as those? Can we remember when 
we had no idea of Him, and got it afterwards by 
that process ? Certainly not. Memory running 
back furthest into childhood can find no such atheis- 
tic blank. Little children may be very religious.* 
It matters not for this purpose whether we suppose 
the idea of God to be ' ' innate " with the child, or to 
be always communicated to him by his elders before 
he can remember. There it is, before thought about 
" conscience " or anything else metaphysical. In the 
latter alternative it has passed down from one genera- 
tion to another, from the very first, and found each 
successive soul ready to receive it without question 
or reluctance, as if made for such* belief. This at 
least is " innate " (inborn) — the adjustment of man's 
mind to the knowledge of God. The latter is as 
evidently suited and needful to the former as light 
to the eye.f 

If we had no actual information about this, we 
might indeed make the fanciful conjecture that the 
first man came to know God by abstruse reasoning. 

*In eager controversies over this sentence in other aspects, we do not 
observe how the Word of God said this in person, 4k Of such is the 
kingdom of heaven. 1 '— St. Matt, xviii. 

t To those who have read that curious and in many ways interesting 
book, ki The Grammar of Assent, 11 it would be well worth while to ex- 
amine how and why the writer substitutes for terms of immemorial 
usage and all just authority, such as beliefs faith and knowledge of 
truth or of God, that of " assent. 11 Without following his ingenious 
discussions, how much better is the simple truth, that as God made 
man specially to know and love Him, so He made that capacity more 
immediate and certain than any other, even than the consciousness of our 
own thoughts. It is not He who said, "know thyself 11 ; but it is He 
who says that He " hath given us an understanding that we may know 
Him that is true." 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY " NATURAL THEOLOGY " ? 39 

But we have the actual history, and that tells us how 
the great Creator at once made Himself known in 
person to that creature whom he had " made in His 
own image. " Let any thoughtful Christian read 
over this history in the first and second chapters of 
Genesis, and then try to adjust it to the theory of 
"natural religion/' and he will find that theory 
casting over the whole account the same air of 
mythical unreality as the like treatment does to 
other parts of Holy Scripture. 

On the other hand, while we might never have 
discovered this great fact by our own studies, it 
commends itself to our reason as soon as known and 
reflected upon. The Glorious One having among 
other creatures on this earth made one sort of living 
beings who were to be distinguished among them all 
as most like the divine, made it the main purpose 
of their life to know and love Him. He might 
have made the beginning of this great knowledge 
and divine affection to come only after a long and 
slow process of thought and many rolling years of 
life. But how plain it is that the simplest, natural 
and noble way would be to tell this man at the first : 
"I am God: know me with all thy mind: love me 
with all thy heart." Why was this harder for Him 
to do then, or for us to believe now, than the other 
opinion ? In no way, if we really believe in the 
Almighty God. But this rational faith does become 
difficult if our minds are obscured by the notion that 
He is under some "reign of law." 

But the question remains, whether mankind having 



40 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

the first and purest knowledge of God by his direct 
Word and not by any " natural theology/' they need 
resort to the latter for further religious information? 
It will be observed first, that to maintain this is to 
reverse the account of natural theology as given by 
its adherents. That supposes it to come first, when 
" revelation merely steps in to its aid," &c. And 
here 1 would guard against a possible misapprehen- 
sion arising from the popular use of terms, by which 
" Word of God " means always and only the book of 
Holy Scripture. Whereas it properly includes all 
that God says in direct address to mankind by words, 
as distinguished from what He may be said to tell 
us by what His works and providence suggest to 
our thoughts. Its primary and literal meaning is 
speech, rather than writing. The latter is a later 
means of securing the former from loss or change, 
and providing that it may reach the increasing 
multitude of men. Doubtless the " Word of the 
Lord " often came to prophets in the first ages upon 
occasions when it was not afterwards written down, 
and thus every means by which any such revela- 
tion is preserved and repeated to men is, in a just 
sense, " the Word of God "; notably that society of 
men set up and continued in the world, expressly 
(among other purposes) to proclaim that truth. 

.Returning then to the question whether there be 
any such demonstrated truth or method of research 
as is commonly called " natural theology/' by which 
we can try questions of religion, and specially the 
one before us, I admit that it has in its favor the 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY " NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 41 

weight of some of the greatest names. Indeed, it 
has come about that no one as much as thinks of 
proving that it is true, useful and even indispensable 
in religious discussion, but takes all that for granted. 
Our examination of it so far is a powerful suggestion, 
if not demonstration, that this is a mistake. If so, 
it is a great mistake, misleading men in their search 
of the highest and most necessary truth. 

Let us examine "natural theology" in another 
aspect, as it is brought forward by some of our day 
in a new and dangerous shape, under the term 
" Comparative Beligion." This method is to select 
from all religions now maintained among mankind 
(or that ever have been) certain true principles in 
which they agree, and to discard all their points of 
difference as erroneous. Is this the way in which 
God has made men to know the truth about Himself 
and their duties ? Quite opposed to it, and allowing 
of no reconciliation, is the idea that God has informed 
mankind of these things by " Word." 

We all agree that the present generation of men, 
and many generations before them, are far from all 
having the true knowledge of God. Their very 
differences prove that some, even vast multitudes, 
must be very far from the true religion. How came 
this to be so? And what is the remedy? Those 
who contend for the method of " natural theology " 
— as well such of them as admit a " Word of God" 
to the first man, as the others — point to what is 
true in all the false religions, as a proof that men 
can attain to some religious truth by their own 
thoughts. 



42 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

But to them (and to those who will not allow 
that there was ever a " revelation" in words, as a 
deeper conjecture than any of theirs, of how all men 
have come by their notions of religion) I propound 
this question : What became afterwards of that true 
knowledge which the first man had? We find 
religions everywhere, in all regions and races and 
ages of men. These religions are various and even 
contradictory ; but they are religions. Whence, 
then, came the true religious idea of an unseen 
power above men, which must be worshipped? If 
we believe that men had at first some sort of 
information of this truth directly from God Himself, 
we cannot answer the question in the same way as 
if we suppose it to have come to them only by their 
own thoughts. 

Can we think that the first knowledge utterly 
perished from later generations? In at least one 
family and small nation, it survived in some purity, 
was re-inforced by other Divine messages through 
prophets, and at last merged into greater and perfect 
good tidings from heaven. But had that first 
knowledge of God given to the first man, utterly 
ceased for the heathen tribes and great nations ? 
Even for any man, woman or child of them all ? 

We cannot rationally think so. It is not fanciful, 
but most reasonable to suppose, that any great idea 
of truth like this, once getting abroad among men, 
will never perish from among them. It may be 
mingled by them with false notions, so as to dis- 
appear to ordinary notice in the compound. But it 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 43 

will still remain in the thoughts of men, and work 
powerfully in all their history; it may enter into 
new combinations of influence a thousand times, but 
will never perish. 

It is one of the noblest conjectures of modern 
science that no force is ever lost : that when it 
seems so, it has only passed into another form in 
other conditions. Is not this even more probable of 
a great thought once in the minds of men ? Is it 
not of itself all but certain of a thought commu- 
nicated to the first progenitors of mankind by God 
Himself and about Himself? — and so proceeding 
from that beginning of the race to every soul of 
them all in all their generations ? Is there any 
place left for doubt, when that truth is involved in 
" the first and great commandment " of human life, 
its chief principle and object of being.* 

Otherwise, what afterwards became of this 
thought? Did it after a while vanish into non- 
entity? Here were the first of mankind (even ten 
pairs instead of one, if any insist upon making an 
allegory in that point of the story of Eden) : God 
having made them and all else, talks with them. 
Here is personal knowledge of Him, not only that 
He is, but in some measure what He is. When their 
children were born and grew up, this knowledge 
passed to them in the practice of worship, in conver- 
sation, and in the thousand incidents upon which 
religious thought will affect the business of ordinary 
life. This must be so even supposing there was 

* Baison d'etre. 



44 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

nothing supernatural to reveal God anew. But 
certainly to these souls in which the thought of 
Him already lay, "'the heavens," and others of His 
wonderful works, "declared the glory of God." 

We will not now trace this knowledge down the 
generations which preserved the original religion in 
practice, but rather those which passed into idolatry. 
Had the first revelation then utterly vanished with 
these, so that they began all thought of religion 
anew, with reflections upon their " consciousness " 
and " causation " ? Both reason and experience are 
against this notion. Who has ever had a great idea 
annihilated in his mind? What instance of it is 
there in history ? By what process or progress 
could this greatest of conceptions cease to exist in 
any society of men ? 

A change to false religion after mankind lost 
original innocence is quite supposable and really 
probable. The son of one who, like one of us, 
though beset by evil desire, is still a pious wor- 
shipper, becomes worldly and vicious. He changes 
his religion somewhat to agree more with his evil 
heart. His descendants follow the same downward 
process. At last we have a nation of idolaters, with 
an elaborate system of false worship, and successive 
generations born and growing up with no idea of 
any other religion than this. 

Yet all the while the original revelation of God 
survives in the very idea of any religion ; of some 
being, power and person (or persons) above man ; of 
this Divine law and will being contrary to man's 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY "? 45 

corrupt self-will. So that the traces of truth in all 
false religions, so far from being a proof of a "natural 
theology" which invents the conception of God from 
our own thoughts, and then by degrees rises from a 
non-religious conscience to the thought of Him as 
holy and gracious, are only another tribute to the 
Word of God as the first and only authority in all 
these questions. 

But the theory of " Natural Keligion " is some- 
times argued from Holy Scripture itself, viz. from 
what St. Paul says in the Epistle to the .Romans, 1st 
chap., 19th and 20th verses. All the chief matters 
of God's Word are mentioned or alluded to in various 
parts and passages. It is therefore astonishing to 
see what a structure of opinion has been raised upon 
only these two verses. (See Prof. Jowett's rules as 
quoted in Chap. VI.) Nowhere else in Holy Scrip- 
ture do any careful writers profess to find this idea ; 
for the well-known passage which occurs soon after, * 
is by them all and correctly applied only to the 
moral sense of right and wrong in conduct. Yet if 
only those two first-mentioned verses did plainly 
declare the doctrine of natural theology, it would 
prove that to be divine truth. 

The precise words as given in our generally excel- 
lent English Bible are as follows : " Because that 
which may be known of God, is manifest in them; [or 
to them] for God hath showed it unto them. For 
the invisible things of Him from the creation of the 

* Rom. ii. 14. 15.— For when the Gentiles, &c, . . are a law unto 
themselves. Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, 
&c. 



46 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made, even His eternal power and 
Godhead ; so that they are [or, that they may be] 
without excuse." In this there is no direct state- 
ment that any man ever did or ever can by his mere 
thinking discover for the first time the fact of God's- 
existence and His character. 

Let us examine whether the preceding and con- 
tinuing argument of the writer, and a fair statement 
of the meaning of St. Paul in these verses in accor- 
dance with that, and in our more usual language,, 
will really express the idea of "natural theology." 
Thus : St. Paul declaring that (and how) all men 
alike, Jews or heathen (Gentiles) need the salvation 
of God in Christ, goes on to say: " The just dis- 
pleasure of the great God lies upon all mankind. 
The Gentiles are not innocent, though they have 
not had Moses and the prophets. For to all man- 
kind alike, the religious idea, the thought of God, 
had not only come by tradition from Adam and 
Noah, # but had been continually renewed and cor- 
rected in their minds by the sight of His great 
works. Thus the eternal power and Divinity as- 
something above us and to which we should be 
obedient, is enough known to each soul of man ta 
make him a wilful sinner if he will sin. In fact, 
these Gentiles did not and do not obey and love God 
according to this knowledge. And as one of its 
results, this ungodliness darkened their very intelli- 

* Only a little before St. Paul recognizes the divine story of Adam in 
Genesis; and that tells us how Adam knew God, and talked with Him r 
as also did Noah. 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 47 

gence. So the more intelligent they claimed to be, 
the more really foolish they became in worldly self- 
conceit. " 

It will be observed that in all this there is no 
encouragement to the notion that men can by their 
mere thoughts, ascend to any true knowledge of 
God. It teaches the precise opposite. St. Paul 
shows by a past history that all men are morally 
guilty, and are by this in an actual process of 
farther removal from the truth with which the first 
men began. It is really wonderful that commenta- 
ries upon this passage do not take notice of this, and 
understand him to mean that God shows the know- 
ledge of Himself to all men " by the things which are 
made," in the way of reminder and corroboration, 
and not of original revelation. Certainly the divine 
story of Adam and his first descendants which St. 
Paul believed (as we do) tells us of a greater know- 
ledge of God among the first men than by mere 
thoughts about the seasons and stars. And he has 
in mind that first period, for he is speaking expressly 
of what men knew " from the creation of the world." 
We have before shown this, and also how that first 
knowledge could never entirely perish in the suc- 
ceeding generations, especially as that idea of religion 
was refreshed by their beholding visible works of 
the true God. 

Nor does St. Paul in this, or in the terrible account 
of the increasing degradation of mankind which 
follows, allow of an exception for certain philosophers 
of Greece. This is a very important matter in our 



48 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

enquiry; for it will appear more and more in the 
course of this discussion that the opinions of these 
men, notably of Plato, have been made very much of 
by the Christian maintainers of "natural theology" 
— not to say allowed as of the highest authority in 
matters upon which this whole study turns. Let us 
remember that Socrates and Plato had lived and 
taught hundreds of years before St. Paul, and that 
he was then surrounded by their disciples and 
admirers. .Now Plato's ingenious ideas never saved 
him from the sensual vices of his countrymen, nor 
worked any improvement in morals among the 
Greeks in the four hundred years that had followed. 
On the contrary, the world was probably more 
wicked in St. Paul's day than in Plato's. Observe 
rather, that if any men are singled out with emphasis 
in this divine condemnation, it is they who professed 
to be the (most) "wise" — <yo<po\ or philosophers: 
see v. 22. 

Nor does this passage of Holy Scripture contain 
any sort of suggestion that men come to a knowledge 
of God by metaphysical thinking about "conscious- 
ness," or the "absolute,'' or the "conditioned," or 
" ontology," which is what all our later Christian 
writers have in mind in their " natural theology." 
In the first place, it is not at all an account of the 
rise and advance of the knowledge of God among 
men, but in the exact contrary, of their degradation 
from such knowledge at the first. We must then 
read the words of the apostle of God in accord with 
those of Moses the prophet of God, and understand 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY " NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 49 

him to be telling how the sons of Adam fell from 
that state in which the knowledge of Himself which 
God had given to their forefathers, had come down to 
them, and was recalled to their attention every day 
by the " things which were made." 

Besides, the metaphysicians in using these words 
of St. Paul, evidently think that he is speaking of 
subtle abstract thinkers like Plato (and themselves); 
whereas he is describing " every soul of man " in the 
common duties and destiny. He is not busy and 
interested in the ingenious play of his own intellect, 
or its struggle of logic with other such ; he is think- 
ing and speaking of man's state and Christ's salva- 
tion, as they are seen spread out before his exalted 
and inspired vision. He sees that the true knowledge 
of the true God is of the very life of every man, 
woman and child. If then they all had to reason 
like Plato, or Sir W. Hamilton, or even intelligently 
to follow their arguments, they never could know Him 
"whom not to know is death eternal." 

Or are we asked to believe that the common herd 
are at all times vicariously represented for this by the 
philosophers? It almost seems as if this absurd 
notion were in our scholars' minds. Or is the theory 
that the mass of us beside the Platonists, etc., enjoy 
the results of their severe thinking in our thus 
knowing God without that thinking ? This is as 
impracticable, if not quite so preposterous upon its 
face, as the other. 

Nor can it be said that the metaphysical process 
always takes place in the ignorant man's mind 
5 



50 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

though he cannot state it in words. For if this be 
so, somebody would have been found to express it in 
the language of plain people, so that they could now 
follow the account of it with assent. Whereas any 
such attempt only sets them to wondering why they 
never went through this necessary approach to 
belief. It is so foreign to their experience, and so 
contrary to fact, that it unsettles their actual know- 
ledge of Grod, and rather tends to make that most 
glorious truth fade from their apprehension like a 
dream and delusion. Certainly neither these nor 
any other arguments for natural theology are in 
Holy Scripture here, but these words of St. Paul are 
really contrary to them. 

If any hesitate still to discard what has the 
authority of so many very learned and devout men 
let them go with me in studying what has misled 
them. First, there is a strong fascination to minds 
of that turn to find enjoyment in such speculation 
and not to notice where it deviates from real truth. 
Then in this, though they set out at first to encourage 
the faith of all, they lose sight of this main object in 
a mere intellectual struggle with the champions of 
doubt (gaudia certaminis). As this "natural" and 
metaphysical religion is the very fighting ground of 
all the objectors to Christian faith, its defenders follow 
them there and fancy it their ground too. Without 
doubt something of the kind may sometimes be done 
to help convince unbelievers — only for that, and 
only then with a distinct assurance to them that 
our faith in God does not rest upon this imperfect 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 51 

but upon far better ground.* But for 
aids to faith — for what Christendom most needs 
now, the re-assurance of those who have always had 
(at least intellectually) the Christian knowledge of 
God — this is irrational and harmful (See Appendix 
A, on the relation between Metaphysics and Theo- 
logy.) 

There is another great aspect of this matter sug- 
gested by one of the words just used — "intellectu- 
ally." The philosophical defenders of faith treat it 
as merely mental. As in their view God is known 
only by an intellectual process through man's 
"consciousness," some of them speak of Him only as 
11 Mind." This not only greatly contracts what we 
may and need to know of Him, but is exactly con- 
trary to the direction He gives for attaining such 
true knowledge, and defeats the greatest advantage 
of that knowledge to us. Its corollary is, the more 
intellectual the man, the more godly — at least the 
more God-knowing. Now Holy Scripture (in this 
case words spoken by the very Word of God in 
person) has an altogether different account of this. 
It states a real order of the true knowledge of God, 
to some persons " revealed," from others " hidden." 
The former are the children, the poor, the "foolish"; 
the latter are "the wise and intellectual" (or "pru- 
dent," as our usually admirable version incorrectly 
renders. St. Matth. x. 25, &c.) So also, " If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine" &c. — 

* I am arguing now not with such, but with those who defend faith 
upon insufficient grounds, and with people who have not renounced that 
faith, but are doubting and perplexed. The others will have a few 
words of kindly expostulation at the end. 



52 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

whether what is taught him concerning God by the 
Word be true and divine. — St. John vii. 17. 

" Would you then insult and degrade religion by 
allying it with ignorance? Have not bigots done 
this in all ages, and so been the worst enemies of 
faith ? For thus they have driven thoughtful and 
honest souls into unbelief; and so would you do 
now." To this I answer that our business is with 
this present, no matter what mistakes have been made 
in the past. There is certainly now no question of 
dungeons and racks for people who know too much. 
Did not God say what I have just quoted, to the 
effect that intellectual self-confidence hinders men 
from learning the highest truth, and that obedient 
humility promotes that knowledge? And have I 
not made the natural and true application of this to 
our present enquiry ? 

There is no greater illustration of this very misuse 
of "man's wisdom" in applying it to divine things, 
than that our Christian writers of great and deserved 
authority cannot see God's Word thus plainly for- 
bidding their "Natural Theology." It is not even 
only in the plain passages already cited, but appears 
in all parts of Holy Scripture, especially the Gospels 
and Epistles, notably this very Epistle of St. Paul to 
the Eomans, as well as his first to the Corinthians.* 
It tells us all that whatever be the uses of human 
discovery in knowledge of a lower kind (or perhaps 
in cautious illustration of what we have learned 
directly in lowly obedience from a divine Word, in 

* See Appendix C for a careful study of Rom. i. 18-ii. 16, and 1 Cor. 
i. and ii. 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY " NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 53^ 

which the plainer and less intellectually ambitious 
people are more likely to be the wisest), here are 
matters in which it cannot teach anything, but wiU 
actually tend to mislead. I have never seen these 
reasonings of "natural theology " used as a mere help 
and illustration of what is taught by God's Word. 
And, however used, I have never seen these divine 
cautions added to the reasonings by those who 
should never forget the spiritual danger to us all, of 
which the love of God gives such plain warning. 

To maintain the " Natural Theology" as meant 
only for the more intelligent people is of further ill 
effect, because no one can say where that line should 
be drawn. Besides, it is a suggestion that the 
simpler faith is false, as being irrational. It is true 
that the complete Christian knowledge of God is 
not merely intellectual ; it includes something far 
greater. Yet d fortiori it includes that inferior part, 
which may be known to the wise and intelligent, 
while the higher part is hidden from them. That 
knowledge, complete, is the only real life of each soul. 
And so the love of God for men does not hide the 
knowledge of Him from them in metaphysics and 
"ontology," which would be to subject almost all 
those souls to certain death. Yet men can hide 
it from themselves, or themselves from it, in philo- 
sophy. 

This erroneous tendency is in our day showing 
itself in a new "scientific" contradiction of the Word 
of God. It tends always to suppress the fact that 
man is a degraded creature, that is, one that has 



54 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

sunk down from a higher original nature. But all 
our present "Science" is full of the theory that men 
were at first very brutish barbarians, upon which 
the lowest tribe now living are an improvement. 
So, with the disposition to "reconcile faith with 
modern thought," we tend to make such explanation 
of that sublime truth of the first man being most 
innocent and intelligent, and " walking with God" 
in perfect love, that it will be really denied. 

All just reasons therefore lead to the conclusion 
that it is our true nature, as God has made us, to 
learn truth in religion from what He has directly 
revealed to us according as we have obedient 
humility, while this greatest truth is hidden from 
intellectual pride. This is the healthful and origin- 
ally native air into which, notwithstanding a great 
fall of the race, we are yet born, by the gracious 
Divine love, and in which we may regain innocence 
and honor by the true knowledge of God. Why 
should " babes," for learning what is of their real 
life, go out of this warm light of home into the very 
dark and cold abandonment of negation and mere 
human thought, that they may afterwards regain 
this shelter by their own exertion ? 

Certainly, as we have seen before, no example or 
suggestion of such fatal folly is given us in the Book 
of God. But here is one of its statements of how 
men may come to know the highest truth : " God, 
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
times past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in 
these last days spoken unto us by His Son." This 



SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 55 

too was immediately addressed to men who lived 
long after Plato, and with whom the same question 
as now was raised, whether or not they should set 
this knowledge from Heaven above all other thought. 

Nor have any apparent good effects of Natural 
Theology given the Christian scholars reason to 
adhere to it. Even the writer already quoted* says : 
"Philosophy has arrived at no definite results in 
theology properly so called, and never laid down any 
principle as to the nature of God which has not in 
its turn been assailed and upset." 

Why then in our present investigation of a great 
religious subject should we resort to such a fruitless 
study as that? Eather let us proceed at once to the 
best, or rather the only real authority for Christians 
in such investigation, viz. God's direct Word, spoken 
to certain men for all, preserved upon earth in a 
divine society now for many ages, and especially 
written in a Book of God kept and certified to by 
that Church. 

I may indeed challenge the assent to this of all 
Christians, even of those who contend most strenu- 
ously for Natural Theology. They will say that all 
its truth is declared yet more clearly in the Holy 
Scriptures of God ; so that anything not appearing 
therein, especially if " rather repugnant thereto, " is 
not of the true Natural Theology. 

We have now arrived at these just conclusions: 
First, that if the assumed idea of "Laws of Nature " 

*Ghristlieb — Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 79. 



56 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

be true, it is a truth of Eeligion. Secondly, that in 
such case it is made known to us as are other truths 
of religion in the Holy Scriptures. It follows of 
course, thirdly, that if the Scriptures contain no such 
doctrine, there is no sufficient ground for believing 
it ; but, fourthly, if those Scriptures affirm the oppo- 
site, then we must dismiss the idea of "Laws of 
Nature " and a " Eeign of Law " as a false specula- 
tion and assumption. 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OP KNOWLEDGE. 57 



CHAPTEE V. 

COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE BY 
" SCIENCE" OR BY A WORD OF GOD. 

IF we were to proceed now to the test of a 
"reign of law" by Holy Scripture, we might 
be met at once with this objection, that Scripture 
itself must be interpreted by Science wherever they 
come in contact, because this latter is the more 
certain sort of knowledge. Even some to whom this 
objection did not occur at first, might afterward 
have the force of our completed proof impaired, if 
not entirely overcome, by the suggestion, which is 
maintained by some writers of high character. 
Another notion belongs with it, and will also be 
discussed in what follows, namely, that Science and 
Eeligion are two equal, co-ordinate, and yet inde- 
pendent kinds of truth, neither of which can well 
maintain itself without the alliance of the other. 
We will therefore proceed now to a thorough exam- 
ination of these assumptions. 

The Almighty Lord having made man in His own 
image, and placed him on earth among the inferior 
creatures, may have given him (and we know in fact 
that He has) two general sources of knowledge. 
These may be distinguished in two aspects : first, as 
to the subjects and importance of knowledge, and? 
secondly, as to the certainty of it. We do know that 
He Has done all this with the most loving wisdom 
and with the wisest love. 



58 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

It is then the only rational conjecture that He 
has made the higher sort of knowledge the more 
certain. It is quite incredible that He did not make 
that which was the more important to man's well- 
being the more certain to his apprehension. Even 
this presumption would be increased if man had 
become in any way separated from this most neces- 
sary knowledge by a degradation which he could 
not of himself reverse ; and if " God so loved the 
world" as to renew that knowledge, and so add to 
it as to give him thereby again " everlasting life." 

What then in this great division is the higher 
knowledge ? Certainly that of God Himself and of 
our relations to Him. What is the sort of know- 
ledge most important to man himself? That of his 
spiritual well-being, of his highest nature, and of his 
longest enduring welfare. This in fact belongs in 
and can no way be separated from the highest know- 
ledge mentioned just before — that of God Himself, 
and what the human soul has to do with Him and 
(by His will and law) with fellow-men. A knowledge 
of other creatures and of what promotes our merely 
animal, and even our merely intellectual, well-being 
— of what affects this for three or four or five score 
years of such life as we have now — is valuable, but 
certainly not in any just comparison with the other. 

The two general modes in which God gives us 
knowledge, correspond to this distinction of the sorts 
of knowledge. The one is by direct speech of the 
Creator God to man. The other is by giving him 
the intelligence to observe and reason about his own 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 

thoughts and the creation around him. The first 
impression from comparing these must be, that the 
method by direct words is the more certain. 

Suppose we try it by our experience with fellow- 
men, so far as that is a safe test of these matters. If 
one in whom I am sure of love and truth to me — as 
a good father to a good son — tell me something in 
words, and I go out and see something that he has 
done which seems to me not to accord with the 
words, can I with any reason judge this latter more 
certain information from him than his express 
speech ? Upon only one possible condition : namely, 
that he inadvertently, or with a mistaken impression 
of fact when he spoke, said what he would afterward 
himself correct. But this could not apply as to the 
Word of God. 

Without doubt all such illustrations should be 
used with reverent caution, and all their just qualifi- 
cations carefully stated. Thus, if it be said that God 
really speaks to us in His works, intending them as 
His communications of knowledge, which the father 
in the case supposed above does not, this assumes 
too much in either case. The comparison I have 
used is as just if the good father did intend such 
suggestion to his son, and did even say, "I shall 
also tell you some things by what you will notice I 
have done. 1 ' If there seemed afterward a conflict 
between the actual words and what I inferred from 
my observations, would I think the inferences the 
more certain ; or would I not more reasonably and 
modestly find the discrepancy to be caused by my 



60 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE BEIGN OF LAW." 

mistaken judgment of this latter information? We 
have indeed a proverb that "actions speak louder 
than words "; but that is an impeachment of the 
sincerity of the words. 

On the other hand the objector as above, assumes 
positively that God does teach us truth in our science 
just as He does by His Word. We do not know this 
directly by the Divine Word. It is but an inference, 
like that scientific knowledge itself, from our reflec- 
tion upon our own minds and the creation around 
us. But after much reflection I am unable to see 
how any such reasoning of ours should make a 
Christian as sure that God is thus instructing him as 
when He does it in this way," Thus saith the Lord." 
It is an inference of an inference which we are thus 
comparing for certainty with the direct Word of God. 

Besides, there is no such immeasurable difference 
of power and truth between the minds of any son 
and father, as between one of us or all of us com- 
bined and the knowledge of God. The son can in 
some degree try his father's words by facts ; for us* 
creatures to do so toward our Creator, would be 
mere folly. 

If it be said that the uncertainty to us of the 
written Word of God lies in its coming to us through 
fellow-men, this can only be in so far as we reject an 
actual Divine inspiration of those writers. This is a 
great subject of itself. I do not undertake here to 
discuss the different theories of " inspiration " which 
theologians have put forth. But even upon the 
lowest Christian view of this as regards the Old and 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 61 

New Testaments, there is no comparison of certainty 
between these and what some men write and others 
read as " Science." If I were arguing with those 
who think that the Lectures of Prof. John Tyndall, 
or even the Principia of Newton, have as much 
certainty of truth as the Gospels, or more, I would 
not suppose it to be a discussion between Christians. 

In the comparison we must also consider how the 
different kinds of knowledge reach, not merely the 
few thousands of men who make or carefully follow 
the scientific processes of discovery, but all the 
minds of mankind, say at least of the present Chris- 
tendom. For almost all of these the scientific know- 
ledge comes to them in the writings — the books — 
of the scientific few, or more commonly of those who 
compile from them. So that this, besides its first 
uncertainty, has also in a greater degree that same 
element of imperfection in human authorship which 
is erroneously objected to our sacred writings, and 
without their inspiration. 

But suppose it be still insisted that human lan- 
guage in writings is incurably uncertain as a medium 
of knowledge, as shown by the very disputes of men 
over the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. We need 
only reflect that this is even yet more true of scien- 
tific knowledge. For what does the discoverer and 
reasoner in this make haste to do at last, and account 
his greatest achievement? To state his result in the 
best words, so as to reach the minds of other men. 
Do not all such teachers send the rest of us rather to 
the libraries than the laboratories, and look to be 
6 



62 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE RETGN OF LAW." 

sustained, applauded and rewarded by the men who 
read? Our science owes everything to human 
speech. It cannot move without it; it cannot afford 
to disparage it. 

Granted that the controversies of Christians prove 
that some men, and perhaps all in some degree, do 
not obtain in the Word of God perfect knowledge of 
the truth it contains. This can be best understood 
by moral causes — the prejudices and perversity of 
our loss of original innocence, some of which still 
remain, even in those most restored to goodness. 
Yet the useful knowledge which they do gain from 
the Word of God is of immense value. Man's lan- 
guage is, like his mind and all else about him, limited, 
and cannot contain all the Divine truth. But this 
imperfection of language goes to all its other uses in 
a yet greater degree. 

The Divine Word is not merely a wonderful book 
cast upon the earth for each one to read or neglect 
or misinterpret as he pleases. It is the substance of 
all that God has said to men, preserved and pro- 
claimed among them by a perpetual society of men 
under His patronage, and which is especially "the 
witness and keeper of Holy Writ. 11 How entirely 
different in this respect is our science at its best! 
It is the mere substance or result of what individual 
men have written, or do now, without organization 
and without responsibility. 

A greater difference yet is to be observed in that, 
whatever be the imperfection of human language, it 
is what God in His love has made for man as the 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 63 



vehicle of truth ; so its most complete and successful 
use should be when He by it conveys to them the 
highest and most useful knowledge. There is but 
one imaginable escape from the application of this to 
our present question. That would be in proving 
that the religious knowledge was much the less 
important to man's welfare. Assuredly, any argu- 
ment founded upon that great fact, the love of God, 
ought to have the greatest force in this enquiry. 

Very few will in terms deny that the moral and 
spiritual welfare of mankind is their chief interest. 
But even this does not adequately state the matter 
before us. In such discussion Christians should 
rather fix their thoughts from the first upon the real 
nature and life of man. They do know with absolute 
certainty of truth that the first and great command- 
ment of this, its foundation principle and man's pur- 
pose of existence, is, to love God Himself with a 
personal affection w T hich not only transcends, but 
virtually includes all other purposes and true motives. 
For this then all the other parts and pow T ers of 
human life really exist. This is true even of the 
kindly affections, in various relations, towards fellow 
human creatures (" thy neighbor ") which make up 
so much of a good life. It may even be wisely 
believed by us, with far more certainty than our 
sciences, that only for that same purpose exists all 
the " Nature " about which our other knowledge is 
concerned. This is what man was made to do (let 
us mark these words well,) "with all his heart, with 
all his soul, and with all his mind." This is what 



64 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

the perfect truth enjoins upon us all when it says : 
"Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God": in a 
happy devotion to another person, which is honor 
and joy in itself. This is the knowledge which will 
survive with us and concern us as immortal forever; 
while we have no reason to think that the other will 
be anything to us after the four-score years or less 
of this life. 

It follows therefore that far the most important 
knowledge for men is personally to know the 
Supreme Person, their relations and duties to Him, 
and with this all that belongs to their moral and 
spiritual life. If their original health of soul in this 
has been disturbed and really lost, their most urgent 
necessity is to know whatsoever the merciful love of 
God has provided for regaining it. Let us recall one 
or two of the plain sentences of Holy Writ in which 
the comparison of the Divine and spiritual knowledge 
with any other is given to us. " While we look not 
at the things which are seen, but at the things which 
are unseen ; for the things which are seen are tem- 
poral, but the things which are- unseen are eternal." 
— 2 Cor. iv. 18. " Seek ye first the kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." — St. Matth. vi. 33. 

Considered then only as to comparative importance 
to man's purpose of existence and his welfare, I make 
bold to say that it is certain that God, who is love, 
would give him the religious knowledge with cer- 
tainty, rather than the scientific and secular. Let 
us not fail to remember also that the former affects 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 65 

the whole present life of all men more than the latter ; 
that upon the cheerfulness, patience, hope, peace of 
soul and kind affections which belong with it, depends 
far more than upon any physical well-being which 
the other can promote, whether the mass of man- 
kind shall have the least pain and most enjoyment 
in this world. 

It is incredible then that the One " from whom all 
goodness flows," and all knowledge proceeds, should 
have made the superior and more important truth 
uncertain and doubtfully dependent upon the inferior. 
Would the Good One leave His hapless creatures 
to be entangled by the apparent contradiction of 
their faith in His great salvation by inferior but 
more certain knowledge, so as to lose that faith ? 
" Philosophers " may only smile at this, and feel safe 
in what they think their love of truth. They even 
believe themselves of a more kindly spirit towards 
fellow-men than those who "sound an alarm" against 
whatever impairs Christian faith among plain people. 
But what sort of philanthropy is that which is so 
engrossed with the intellectual pleasures of ten 
thousand men and a few bookish women and chil- 
dren, that it does not make any account of what 
goes into every house and hovel, and decides whether 
one hundred millions of souls shall be happy or no ? 

All these just aspects of the question converge 
upon the conclusion that the knowledge which God 
has given us directly in His Word is more certain 
than what we believe Him to have conveyed to us 
indirectly by scientific investigation. Yet there are 



66 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

eminent and honest Christians who virtually deprive 
this truth of its effect by saying that indeed the 
Word of God is infallibly correct, but that our appre- 
hension of it is incorrect whenever that does not 
agree with " science." Whereupon our very love of 
that Divine truth requires us to readjust this sup- 
posed meaning of the Holy Scriptures to the latest 
" science " as often as this discrepancy is noticed. 
This idea is sometimes accompanied by the sugges- 
tion that such discrepancies only occur where natural 
facts are but incidentally mentioned in the Divine 
Word, and do not really belong with the spiritual 
verities which it means alone to declare, and in 
which it is without error and beyond correction. 

We might with entire truth and justice deny any 
just application of this to our present enquiry, and 
proceed at once to the examination of Holy Scrip- 
ture contained in the chapters which follow. It is a 
mere assumption, offering no proof, and so entitled 
to no weight, and really at once begging the main 
question. It is even a double fallacy as "reasoning 
in a circle" thus: The "reign of law" cannot be 
disproved or tried at all by Holy Scripture, because 
that must be interpreted according to our modern 
science, which is itself founded upon the "reign of 
law." This, notwithstanding it has been already 
(see Chap. III.) shown to be a religious rather than a 
scientific question. In fact the objection really, 
though not in the intention of its authors, is but an 
evasion of what has already been proved of the 
superior certainty of the Word of God. Yet, as it 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 67 

does entangle and confuse so many minds, let us 
carefully examine it in this shape. 

We are all agreed that the Word of God does not 
intend to teach " science "; and also that in its 
incidental mention of ordinary natural facts it gives 
their appearance rather than their reality. So does 
all our language now after every discovery ; and this 
not merely in the loose speech of ignorant people, 
but in the careful writing of the best informed. Our 
most exact men of science will describe their nicest 
observations thus : " Soon after the sun rose the 
clouds presented a very unusual appearance," etc. 
We agree that in the narrative parts of Holy Scrip- 
ture some men speak according to the notions of 
their age and country, however incorrect these 
notions have since been discovered to be. This is 
true history. What these men said may not be true, 
but it is true that they said it, as much as that " the 
fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." 

Yet unless we believe that whatever the Holy 
Scriptures assert directly and as true, is true, we 
cannot fully believe in them as the Word of God. 
We cannot cure this by the distinction that whatever 
is moral and spiritual is the perfect divine; while 
what is natural and physical is the fallible human. 
For this finally leaves the question of what we are to 
believe from the Word of God to each man's fallible 
human judgment. This is precisely what is called 
"rationalism," and is rightly denied in matters of 
doctrine as overthrowing all real faith in God's 
Word. It is as fatally wrong in matters of fact ; for 



68 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

men will and actually do disagree in particular 
instances as to what is spiritual and what natural. 

Besides, the spiritual and natural are usually so 
connected in Holy Scripture that they must be 
believed or denied together. Of this all miracles, 
prophecies and even Divine promises of temporal 
good are some instances. If the spiritual truths of 
the Gospels are alone divinely true, while I may 
correct the rest by the "laws of Nature " known to 
us now, why should I believe something so contrary 
to these "laws" as that a man rose from the dead, 
or any of those great wonders which prove to us 
that we have any Word of God at all ? Prof. Tyndall 
has in fact just applied this notion to the Song of the 
Angels at Bethlehem, in a way which I could not 
object to if I accepted the notion that our Holy 
Scriptures are true barely as to the spiritual. 

It is fatally injurious to faith in the Word of God, 
because it suggests the question whether God would 
teach us what is true spiritually by means of what 
is false physically. To say that this is necessary 
from the limit of man's intelligence and the imper- 
fection of his language, cannot protect that faith. 
For it violates our just instinct of thought of the 
almighty power of Him who made man and his 
language what they are, and could certainly adjust 
and use them to effect His loving will perfectly. 
Why then did He convey the spiritual truth in 
connection with physical error, which would expose 
me to my own intellectual doubts and the cavils of 
unbelievers ? Are there not enough moral difficulties 
of faith in my own perverseness and my temptations? 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 69 

Nor is it true that what is distinguished as natural 
and not spiritual and supernatural is never mentioned 
in Holy Writ as itself revealed, but only incidentally 
in revealing what is spiritual. In what sense is this 
true of the story of "the beginning " in the First 
Book of Moses ? How in any fair reading of that 
can we understand it otherwise than as a direct and 
circumstantial account of the creation of all the 
"Nature" which we know? Why was this given 
unless to be believed ? believed, not merely in the 
latter part of the nineteenth century, when geology 
and astronomy gave us a scientific explanation, but 
as well for the three or four thousand years between 
Moses and the modern " scientists " ? We cannot ex- 
pect men to believe with a high and earnest religious 
faith what could not but have been entirely misun- 
derstood by the first hundred generations to whom 
it was revealed. 

It is but another illustration of this mistake that 
some orthodox Christians try to escape from the 
scientific difficulties by discrediting those first great 
words of the Book of Genesis, as not having the 
same author as the rest, or, at least, being the mere 
impressions of the uninformed man, which we, of an 
enlightened age, can transform to a true account of 
the creation. What then shall we say of the Fourth 
Commandment ? It is among the most purely 
moral and spiritual sayings of Holy Scripture. It 
has no defect of human composition, originally 
being " written with the finger of God upon a table 
of stone." Every element of majesty and authority 



70 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

combines to make it as certainly " the Word of 
God " as anything in Holy Writ. Yet it contains 
not only a reference which gives the highest sanction 
to that account of creation impugned by our modern 
science, but even an affirmation of the very thing in 
it which is most objected to on the one side and 
most laboriously " reconciled " on the other. It is 
given as the Divine reason why we are to consecrate 
every seventh of our actual days to religion, because 
" in six days the Lord made heaven and earth," etc. 
Is this, too, an instance of the merely natural and 
physical side of Holy Scripture which is not inspired 
of God, and so is subject to correction by our 
science ? 

Then also, our science is by all confession of its 
intelligent votaries very incomplete. To think 
otherwise would be to stop at once all that triumphant 
progress which is so much admired. As it is sup- 
posed to have vast conquests before it, so, of neces- 
sity, it has as yet mastered but a very small part of 
its field. On the other hand, the Word of God to 
men was completed near two thousand years ago. 
While the other has been making its very incom- 
plete advances, it has stood without change and 
without addition ; all-sufficient for its superior pur- 
pose. Is it reasonable to adjust the greater to the 
less ; the perfect to the incomplete ? Must it not be 
a needless, a doubtful, and a very dangerous process ? 
We shall find an illustration of how it impairs faith 
in our Word of God in many thousands of less in- 
formed minds, in the statements of those Christian 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 71 

writers who are fascinated by it ; while under various 
better influences they still hold fast to the Christian 
creed. One such says: "If science really proves 
that the Mosaic account of creation is false, then we 
will give up the Mosaic account, &c. But it never will," 
&c.* Is that the language of such faith as St. Paul 
had ? I am sure that that faith, representing what 
we must all aspire to, and by holy inspiration warn- 
ing us against " man's wisdom M in any such conflict, 
would say rather, " Then we will give up the 
science" 

I find as forcible an illustration of this tendency in 
the following sentence carefully published by a theo- 
logian of high repute as well in Europe as America 
as a sound divine and profound thinker : " Science 
has a foundation and so has religion; let them unite 
their foundations," &c.f The former, indeed, we 
have reason to think contains much useful truth ; 
but it is not according to Christian faith to believe 
it worthy of. any comparison with the Gospel of 
God, either for the importance or the certainty of its 
propositions. 

But I would notice even more in detail what has 
appeared in a religious journal under a signature of 
high authority and well deserved influence.^ In the 
midst of what is all expressed with the writer's 
elegance and force comes this passage : " We go 
farther still, and hold that in all that belongs to the 
natural form and expression of religion, deference 

*Ed. Ch. Journal, N. Y., September 21§t, 1876. 

tDr. McCosh. 

$ " F. D. H." in " Churchman," November 4th, 1876. 



72 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

must be paid to any proved fact or demonstrated law 
in the physical world. That is, if the Bible should be 
found to affirm anything as in the sphere of nature 
which science can show to be contrary to nature, 
the written account must yield. Direct communica- 
tion by God's works is there more sure than the in- 
direct by human hands. In the sphere of the super- 
natural, the realm of the spirit, of the future life, of 
God and angels and of purely spiritual doctrine, 
science has no vocation or function ; can affirm 
nothing and deny nothing, is simply incompetent. 
Here is the real security of a positive faith and her 
domain against all possible scientific or so-called 
scientific assaults. But when we come to records, to 
a Scripture, or to statements about natural things as 
natural, any ascertained verity in the rocks or stars 
or mathematics is good against any verbal representa- 
tion/' etc. 

' What is said in this of men's science being "direct 
communication " from God, and His Word " indirect," 
after the careful discussion of these matters in the 
first part of this chapter, hardly needs more for its 
refutation than its statement apart from the influ- 
ence and the elegant rhetoric of the writer. But to 
make sure in so serious an affair, let us observe it in 
this just paraphrase : " Many different men in various 
ages and lands, observe and compare and generalize, 
and contend with one another, and write and pub- 
lish about this world which God has made around 
us, what the rest of us receive as science. This is 
1 direct communication ' from Him! 'Holy men of 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OP KNOWLEDGE. 73 

old spake (and wrote, for ' all Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God,') as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost': and this is the 'indirect by human hands'." 
Surely, 

— " the force of folly could no farther go." 

There is an advantage to truth in having that 
strange inversion of the terms " direct " and " indi- 
rect," which has been examined in the general in the 
first part of this chapter, reviewed in this instance of 
its statement by a writer who expresses the opinion 
of many, and by his well-deserved influence other- 
wise is likely, if not confuted, to extend it to more. 

The i( we " who are concerned are all of us to 
whom this question comes, — whether on account of 
modern science we ought to discard, or to change, 
our religious belief as we have understood the 
Church of Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible to declare 
that truth. The writer says we should not discard, 
but adjust the faith to the science, because the latter 
is a direct communication from God, while " the 
Bible," the " written account," " records " or " a 
Scripture," is " as in the sphere of nature," but " in- 
direct." Why? Because whatever is written is 
" by human hands." But do not we, most (and 
virtually all) of us, including, I presume, the accom- 
plished writer, learn our geology and astronomy 
11 biology " and " sociology " from books, and thus 
" by human hands " ? Is there such essential imper- 
fection in written words as the vehicles of God's 
communication of truth to man, that even " inspira- 
7 



74 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

tion of God " cannot overcome it ? And yet are they 
when they come to us in a book of Herschel or 
Hugh Miller (not to say Profs. Tyndall and Huxley), 
what is " good against any verbal representation " of 
the Holy Book ? And does not the very scientific 
discovery, before it is put in words, come " by human 
hands" — having thus another remove from direct 
communication by the Great God to men, if we dare 
venture (as I do not) to call it such at all ? 

Why confine this to " the physical world " ? Is 
not man's soul and his thoughts among " God's 
works "; and so our study of them "direct communi- 
cation " about them from Him, which is thus " more 
sure than the indirect by human hands " — (meaning 
the Holy Gospels)? Who can draw the precise line 
in the Holy Scriptures between what is " as in the 
sphere of nature" and "the sphere of the super- 
natural " ? The Duke of Argyll, who is a high 
authority in this sort of Christian science, labors 
hard,* and, as I suppose, his admirers think success- 
fully, to prove that there is no such true distinction 
of natural and supernatural. 

Will F. D. H. draw this distinction as to the begin- 
ning of the First Book of Moses ? Will he point out 
why, for "the supernatural " or for " purely spiritual 
doctrine," any account of the creation should be given 
at all ; and as something not meant to be believed 
when " ascertained verities in rocks, or stars, or 
mathematics " should be set forth by scientific men ? 
And why is whatever such men convince us of in 

♦"Reign of Law," Chap. I. 



COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 75 

our day, an " ascertained verity," (just as the Ptole- 
maic system of astronomy, and the notion of the 
" four elements " were once) ; while no such thing can 
come to our knowledge about " natural things as 
natural " by the (t verbal representation " of the 
Almighty Lord? To my best reason the exact 
reverse of this is true. In a conflict of this kind the 
ascertained verity will be rather in what God tells 
men directly in words than in their studies of His 
material creation, were we the original discoverers 
of science, and quite as much when we read their 
books, which are at best very small and imperfect 
copyings out of what they call a " Book of Nature." 

It is also a very weighty suggestion of truth in 
such questions as these, to consider which of the 
methods compared would most promote the spiritual 
good of men. That we agree is the chief purpose of 
the Word of God. That is the main purpose of the 
Divine love in all that is about us, and all that we can 
know — u all things, visible and invisible." Humility 
and faith in God are our greatest intellectual necessi- 
ties. Unbelief in these spiritual verities, dullness of 
perception that way, and pride of opinion, are our 
chief dangers. Which must be of best effect as 
regards this about anything: to believe more in the 
science of men, or the written Word of God ? 

"Here is the real security of a positive faith." 
Not in false distinctions and absurd comparisons ; 
but in strong, simple, direct faith in God as He 
speaks to us in His Church and in His Book ; so that 
what He thus tells us about anything is the absolute 



76 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

truth, no matter what else seems to contradict it. 
If we adhere to this we need not mind the reproaches 
of those who call us " blind " and " narrow," and say 
that in our panic at the advancement of knowledge 
we " refuse to make room for all the facts." That is 
a mere begging of the question. That question is 
precisely : " What are the facts ? " We say, first and 
certainly, whatsoever God has told to man in His 
most august and gracious Word ; and secondly, and 
probably, many curious things that we can find out 
by the notice and reflection of men, accumulating 
through all the ages. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 77 

CHAPTEK VI. 

EXAMINATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 

TTTHAT follows is the result of a complete and 
V V careful reading of the Holy Scriptures, with 
the purpose of finding and following the truth in this 
matter, without regard to previous impressions. All 
was thus read, so that nothing should escape atten- 
tion, whether belonging directly to this enquiry or 
only incidental thereto. Some eight thousand such 
passages have been carefully examined. The general 
method has been as follows: Every passage has 
been noted which (a) has ever been suggested as 
speaking of, or alluding to, " laws of nature," or 
which being of the same general purport as these, or 
for any other reason might possibly be cited to that 
effect; (b) such as plainly mention " natural " occur- 
rences as being done by the immediate act of God ; 
(c) all relating to creation ; or (d) to the work of 
God in providence; or (e) to miracles; or (f) to His 
granting the prayers of men for material good ; and 
(g) prophecies. 

There is a curious suggestion in the very numbers 
found under these heads, as follows ; and it is not 
without force to the candid mind in the study which 
is before us. There are of such, (a) 12, (b) 55, (c) 
240, (d) 4000+, (e) 3600+, (f ) 334, (g) 2000+. Com- 
pare especially those enumerated as (a) and (b) which 
present the issue most distinctly. Those which 



78 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT U THE REIGN OF LAW." 

declare expressly the reign of God are more than 
fourfold all that can be assumed as suggesting a 
" reign of law," while the hundred times as many- 
others throw their incidental weight the same way. 
But the real and conclusive judgment must be found 
in the scrutiny of the several passages as we proceed 
through Holy Scripture, and the combined result of 
them all. 

Prof. Jowett* makes some very correct and for- 
cible observations upon the error of constructing what 
is set up as a great doctrine of religion out of very 
scant material in the Book of God. He is, indeed, 
mistaken in the instance and application which he 
gives, but no one can dispute his scholarship and 
critical acuteness; nor could any one impeach his 
authority in our question upon the ground of ortho- 
dox bigotry. 

He says : " How slender is the foundation in the 
New Testament for the doctrine . . . . ! two pass- 
ages of St. Paul at most, and those of uncertain in- 
terpretation ! The little cloud no larger than a 
man's hand has covered the heavens. To reduce 
such subjects to their proper proportions we should 
consider first, ivhat space they occupy in Scripture ; 
secondly, how far the language used concerning them 
is literal or figurative ; thirdly, whether they agree 
with the more general truths of Scripture and our 
moral sense, or are not -rather repugnant thereto'; 
fourthly, whether their origin may not be prior to 
Christianity, or traceable in the after history of the 
Church; fifthly, how far to ourselves they are any more 

*1 Ep. of St. Paul to the Thess. with critical notes, p. 162. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 79 

than words." Our present enquiry will give us a 
surprising illustration of each of these rules.* 

We will proceed upon this study of Holy Writ in 
its historical order. The One who is the Cause and 
the Reason of all else begins His written Word to 
mankind with an account of how He created all 
things. That He should thus give a " cosmogony " 
or account of the creation,")" seems to displease some 
of our men of science. But to Christian belief this 
notion of theirs appears absurd. For He, and really 
He alone, could tell of the creation. And as it is the 
assumption and suggestion of all His Word that all 
this was done so that man might love and " glorify " 
Him, we would naturally hope to find it told in that 
Word. A " cosmogony " of man's devising, and that 
brought forward only after a hundred generations of 
them had lived and died — a matter of hypotheses 
and inferences — could not at all hold its ground 
against a true historical and Divine account of the 
creation. It does not mend this that our intellectual 
acrobats walk so boldly on the slender wires of their 
theories over the vast abysses of the past ; or that 
they insist positively that their geology is the Word 
of God, written by Him upon the rocks to tell the 
story of that past. 

* See Appendix C for the precise method and rules by which this ex- 
amination of Holy Scripture has been made. 

t Love of truth requires us to translate such terms into plain English ; 
for really, while our ambitious modern speculators may have a dialect 
of their own, made up of pedantic terms either obsolete or fresh-coined, 
they have no right to force it into the correct use of the language, especi- 
ally where, as in this case,, it may hide the real force of their thoughts 
from their readers. I cannot be mistaken in what I say above of men of 
science objecting to a Divine "cosmogony," since one so eminent as 
Prof. Tyndall. and who knows how to set bis thoughts in most ^lear and 
eloquent phrase, has done this distinctly in his famous Belfast address. 



80 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

In this Divine story of the Creation there is no 
mention of any u laws of nature," or of any mechan- 
ism set in motion by the Creator which corresponds 
to a " reign of law." Those who already held that 
notion might fancy that they found a suggestion of 
it in the third day's creation, of the tree and plant 
" whose seed is in itself." But simply and fairly this 
means the first creation of what had life, and with it 
growth and decay, their perpetuation being not as 
with some things like " the everlasting hills," by the 
continuance of what was first made, but of other 
individuals of the same kind in succession. This re- 
production and new life might then as well be by 
the direct will of God as was the first, — His working 
in the usual order which we see, but always as free 
to do otherwise, even in vegetable life, as when 
Aaron's rod budded, or in animal, as when that rod 
became a serpent. 

It is related that after the sixth day of Creation, 
God rested on the seventh day from all His work 
which He had made. All reflection shows that this 
must be a sublime mystery. Some venture to say 
that it must mean that He, having constructed the 
universe as a machine, and set it in motion, withdrew 
from any power or interference about it (as some say, 
except upon rare and extraordinary occasions). But 
we can think this only by so mistaking the Almighty 
power as to suppose that it needs intervals of rest 
and refreshment; or by fancying that because we 
cannot give any other explanation we are compelled 
to take up this semblance of one. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

This is just as true of the explanation that God 
ceased then to give existence, and afterward only 
" preserved " and u upheld " it ; that is, if by this it 
is meant, as seems to be in the minds of those who 
say it, to exclude Him from the exercise of as much 
power as before, so relieving Him from exhausting 
all His force, and giving opportunity by repose to 
regain what was consumed ; or as if the created 
universe were a machine of which He is the great 
balance-wheel or the engineer. 

Holy Writ does not say in terms, or in expressions 
any way approaching it, that God had made a mechan- 
ical universe which He left to its " laws." It does 
sny that He " rested," which plainly does not mean 
such rest as we need and take after exertion. "He 
fainteth not neither is weary." Then let us " rest " 
upon the sublime mystery of the words with patient 
and silent reverence. Or if any studious conjecture 
of their meaning be made, let it rather be this : that 
from thenceforth He made no new forms of being, 
but repeated in order and series those first created. 

Certainly, so far from this meaning a mechanical, 
invariable " reign of law," we find forthwith upon 
this rest, certain other things done which cannot but 
be thought outside of such laws, and as done for a 
special occasion by the direct will of the Supreme 
Lord. Of these are the placing man in Eden, 
which had been expressly prepared for him, the 
setting within it of the two mystical trees, the direct 
speech of God to man, especially in regard to his use 
of knowledge, and the temptation through the ser- 



82 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

pent. All these are related in the most literal and 
natural way without any suggestion of "laws" 
which are " suspended/' or of any other " laws " 
brought into notice, as the fashion of argument is 
rather now, or, we may add, of any such " laws " as 
existing at all. 

The same method is used in relating the fall of 
man, God's declaration to him of his change of life 
as regards labor, suffering and death, and his expul- 
sion from Eden. Some will refuse all force to this by 
saying that all the story of Paradise and the Fall is 
but a fable or allegory. Their proof of this is merely 
to deride any one who takes it for history. But 
derision is not reason. It can be as easily used 
against what is most true and sacred as against 
bigoted credulity. Wise faith can no more reject 
these incidents from literal history than it can any- 
thing else supernatural in the Word of God. 

In the same way is the history of man brought 
down to the days of Noah. The tragic affair of the 
two oldest sons of Adam is related with much which 
God said to Cain. Then Enoch does not die as is 
" appointed to all men "; and yet this is not told as 
our philosophers, who know of a " reign of law/' 
would relate it now. 

Then comes a great miracle of God. It is quite 
against the imagined "reign of law" that this is 
foretold to one man. God says to him that He is 
displeased with the " cosmos " as He has maintained 
it now for the twelve longest generations of men, on 
account of the wickedness of this master-creature 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 



which He had made in His own image. For this He 
will, after a while, by a flood of waters, suddenly 
destroy almost all of them, and of the other living 
creatures. So at the time appointed the usual order 
of rain and sunshine, of land and water, was entirely 
changed for many days, and that of vegetable and 
animal life interrupted for a whole year. 

It would make but little difference in the force of 
this fact as bearing upon the question before us, even 
if we were to concede that this Flood did not cover 
all the globe, but only that fiftieth part of it perhaps 
then known to mankind. When the Flood ceased 
and the habitable earth reappeared, the few survivors 
of mankind offered worship to the Holy and 
Almighty God.. And then, in gracious notice of 
this, " The Lord said in His heart .... while the 
earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and 
heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not 
cease. "* 

Certainly this is more like a mention of the sup- 
posed " reign of law " than anything else so far in 
Scripture. Yet upon candid study it really forbids 
that notion, God did not say this at the Creation, 
or as any way relating to it. It is separated from 
that event by the vast lapse of sixteen centuries, 
during which He appears to us as " upholding (and 
doing) all things by the (mere) word of His power M 
and will. Nothing in the words suggests His " im- 
posing a law upon Himself." All declare His merci- 
ful and loving purpose and promise to a man who 

* Gen. viii. 21, 22. 



84 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

adored Him. And so it is given as His prophecy 
and covenant to us all of mankind. As between the 
physical and the spiritual, the natural and the super- 
natural, that great saying of God belongs altogether 
with the latter. 

Another great incident of these events is to the 
same effect. God spoke then to mankind some 
other words of blessing and promise ; of a " covenant 
that the waters should no more become a flood to 
destroy all flesh/' and that something should there- 
after, at times, appear in the clouds as a " token " of 
this covenant.* All of these words are worthy of 
deep study, while they are, indeed, too great for our 
comprehension. This, however, is true of all the 
greatest truth which we receive directly from God j 
and so, if we demand as a condition of belief such 
entire comprehension, we never shall believe ; and so 
would remain ignorant in spite of the greatest good- 
ness of God in instructing us. 

But giving faith and thought to what God has 
told us of the bright vision of the rainbow as we 
often behold it in the sky, it is plain that only after 
the flood did this appear to the sight of man. Now 
nothing could be more unlike the entire notion of 
the " reign of law " than this. It discloses a Person 
clothed with " all power," who, after day and night 
have followed one another in the eyes of man for 
near 6000 times, and when the longest living genera- 
tions of them that ever were have come and gone 

*Gen. x. 1-17.— Even the writer of the Article "Noah," in Smith's Bible 
Dictionary, which is guite given to the rationalistic, scientific method, 
admits that the Divine history plainly affirms that the rainbow first 
appeared after the Flood. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 85 

again and again, begins before all mankind an 
entirely new phenomenon to take place frequently 
until the end of the world, and that for a purely 
spiritual purpose. 

The idea of a " reign of law," on the contrary, 
assumes that however this order of "Nature" first 
began, or whether or not it ever had a beginning, 
all has proceeded always without variation. Even 
those who, while allowing this in general, have no 
doubt of the miracles related in our Holy Scriptures, 
allow them to be but single and infrequent varia- 
tions from an exact mechanism which began before 
man inhabited the world. But here is a new general 
fact added to the usual order at least 1600 years 
after that began. Eemember that those very 
reasonings of our " science " from a " reign of law " 
which have been the most generally accepted by 
Christians, have their whole force in the assumption 
that what we observe now in rocks or seas or stars 
can be traced back according to forces and processes 
now at work, so that we can tell with certainty that 
the earth existed a vast while before history, say 
100,000 years, and can tell also what was doing upon 
it in the intervening time. Whatever suggests that 
anything in "Nature " began only by the will of God 
since the race of man has lived, shakes all that 
science. So it is safe to say that not only does noth- 
ing so far in the Book of Genesis tell us of a " reign 
of law," but that this passage of the tenth chapter as 
well as that in the eighth chapter is plainly against it. 

The Divine history continues in the same way 



86 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

down through the times of the patriarchs for eight 
centuries more. In this we have more than a hun- 
dred different mentions of miracles, without one sug- 
gestion of their being " interruptions of laws of 
Nature/' or any of the like expressions with which 
all modern writings are filled. We have about as 
many mentions of natural events as being simply 
what was done at the time by God, and without a 
word of their being according to any such " law." 
The same is true of the several accounts in that his- 
tory, of things being done by Him, whether natural 
or supernatural, in favorable answer to the prayers 
of men. But while in all this Holy Writ so far there 
is nothing said of a " reign of law," there are such 
sayings as these : (to one doubting the promise of 
a gracious miracle) " Is anything too hard for the 
Lord? " — [Gen. xviii. 14.] (A holy patriarch by in- 
spiration of God prophesying blessings to his son) 
" Therefore, God give thee of the dew of heaven and 
of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and 
wine." — [Gen. xxvii. 28.] (Another patriarch declar- 
ing the gracious things which God had done, even by 
means of man's evil deeds) " And God sent me 
before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth 
and to save you by a great deliverance. So now it 
was not you that sent me hither, but God." — [Gen. 
xlv. 7, 8.] 

The histoiy of the days of Moses and Joshua 
which succeed is crowded with miracles and provi- 
dences ; as also with mentions of the Creation, and of 
God's granting blessings, both temporal and spiritual, 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 87 

in answer to the prayers of men. In all this too 
there is nothing said, even by way of most remote 
allusion, of any " laws of Nature." There is this 
silence in a thousand such sentences, when, if that be 
the truth of God, true of Him in " His works," one 
cannot conceive why it should not be spoken of in 
explanation of a providence, in enhancement of a 
miracle, in true account of Creation, in assistance of 
embarrassed faith, in any natural statement of these 
great events. It would be so related if one of those 
who now believe in a " reign of law " were the 
original historian. 

There is also in the narrative a natural mingling 
of the normal with the supernatural, as if the one 
were as easy for the Great Worker as the other, both 
alike His immediate will, and equally easy of belief 
to one who believed in God. This accords exactly 
with the idea of all events since, being by God's 
direct will as much as the original Creation ; but it 
has no agreement with the notion of " natural law." 

It is also related in this history that God declared 
His name to be I AM. This is awfully sublime and 
full of deep thought for all the sons of men. One 
such true thought is that there is no past or future 
with Him ; that He knows and does all things as if 
in the same moment of time. Then no man can ever, 
without great folly, say that He is under limits of 
power, such as would compel us to extend great con- 
structions over long ages ; or can affirm that the 
mighty sayings in which He tells us of " stormy 
winds " and all other things in this Creation " fulfill- 



88 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

ingHis word, 1 ' must be hyperbolical figures of speech, 
because the greatest thing for a man to do would be to 
invent an automatic machine for such purposes, and 
leave it to its motion rather than put forth will upon 
each occasion. It also reminds us that for Him to wish 
anything, and that thing to take place, are identical. 

This great idea descending to us from Heaven 
itself thus speaks in the thousand sentences of 
the history of Israel down to the age of David — 
sentences in which God says to that people: "If 
you walk in my statutes, etc., then I will give you rain 
in due season, " etc. — [Lev. xxvi. 4] ; and such replies 
as this to any one who doubts relief which He 
promises in a great extremity : " Is the Lord's hand 
waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my 
word shall come to pass unto thee or not." — [Numb. 
xi. 23.] 

Now begins the most intellectual age of Israel. For 
we have henceforth in the Holy Scriptures not only 
the history continued, but also a series of authors and 
writings, beginning with the great King David and 
his son, which are chiefly, as regards their human 
composition, poetical and eloquent. But before we 
examine these poetical Scriptures, we may well pro- 
ceed with the sacred history to the end of the Old 
Testament. In all this too we find miracle and 
providence frequently narrated or alluded to with 
the same sublime naturalness ; but not one word of 
" laws of Nature," or anything equivalent to that 
idea. 

The first of the poetical books is that of Job, 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 



which carries us again far back into the patriarchal 
times. This is true not only of its scene of narrative, 
but of its probable author. Both action and author 
appear to be at least as old as the days of Moses.* 
The language is a most wonderful combination of 
exquisite simplicity and sublime imagination. After 
reading more than half through this book and find- 
ing much that is powerfully said about the imme- 
diate will of God in all things, as in the other Scrip- 
tures, we find almost the first passages of Scripture 
which have been cited by Christian writers in 
favor of the notion of " laws of Nature." 

The first is this, which I give at length for its full 
meaning and connection, the precise words which 
have been cited by some authors as just mentioned 
being enclosed in brackets. " Whence then cometh 
wisdom, and where is the place of understanding? 

God understandeth the way thereof, and He 

knoweth the place thereof. For He looketh to the 
ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven : 
[to make the weight for the winds, and He weigheth 
the waters by measure. When he made a decree for 
the rain and a way for the lightning of thunder. 
Then did He see it and declare it ; He prepared it, 
yea, and searched it out. And unto man He said, 
Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to 
depart from evil, that is understanding."] — [xxviii. 
20-28.] 

The phrase in the twenty-sixth verse, " a decree 
for the rain," is assumed to mean that God has 

* Their being of a later date would not alter their main effect in this 
enquiry. 



90 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

" subjected Himself" to supposed "laws of Nature." 
To me it seems simply one of the great figures of 
this God-inspired poet, in which he compares the will 
of God in Creation and in the movements of all 
things, to the edicts or decrees of a prince. Were 
the language literal, a decree need not mean, and 
usually did not mean, to the men of the Bast an 
enduring general law to subjects, but only the will 
of a sovereign declared about some one person or 
for some single transaction.* Thus, here it would 
literally mean each single act of God's will in Provi- 
dence. The entire passage as quoted above, when 
read with care, is no proof of a " reign of law," and 
surely does not affirm any such law imposed upon 
Himself by the Great King. It agrees best, as all 
this Book of Job does, in some two hundred and 
fifty other passages which speak of Providence, 
Creation and miracles, with the idea that God does 
all things always by His immediate will, and not by 
an interposed machinery of " forces," or " laws." 
Does not that divine argument actually intend to tell 
men that it is only folly in them to claim a know- 
ledge of how "God understandeth " the winds and 
lightnings ? concluding so plainly, " Unto man He 
said, Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom " 
for them. 

This applies in like manner to other passages 
sometimes cited as telling of " laws of Nature," as, 
"Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds [Job 
xxxvii. 16], and brake up for it (the sea) my decreed 

* Pro re nata. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 91 

place, (or, as in the margin of A.V., " established my 
decree upon it") and set bars and doors and said, 
Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here 
shall thy proud waves be stayed ? Hast thou com- 
manded the morning since thy days? . . . Knowest 
thou the ordinances of heaven ? " [xxxviii. 10, 12, 33.] 

These few most splendid and sublime imaginations 
of devout poetry appear in the midst of a long pro- 
cession of beautiful verses which all speak of God as 
doing all things by His immediate will and work. 
Thus, u He maketh small the drops of water, etc." 
[xxxvi. 27]. " By the breath of God frost is given " 
[xxxvii. 10], &c, &c. The general purpose of it all 
is plainly to reprove the presumption of mankind ; 
as e. g. what is said as quoted above, of "the ordi- 
nances of heaven," is immediately followed by such 
questions to us as this : " Canst thou send lightnings 
that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are?" 
[xxxvii. 35.] Thus, would not God speak to man if 
He were only like him — even on ever so much 
greater a scale — a contriver and constructor of 
mechanism. 

We may pause here and reflect that we have now 
gone down about 4000 years of divine history, and 
searched nearly half through the Book of God, yet 
found nothing either in the story of Creation or the 
chronicles of Providence and miracles for that vast 
period in support of the idea of "laws of Nature," 
except the verbal resemblance of two words, " de- 
crees," " ordinances "; and these used in a figurative 
way in very splendid poetry, which of all sorts of 



92 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

writing is the farthest removed from exactness of 
expression. 

Should any one account for this general silence of 
God's Word about such "laws, etc.," upon the 
ground that those were very ignorant ages as com- 
pared with ours; and that since 

" Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night," 

the Divine compassion would not obscure the spir- 
itual truth which was to be revealed, by mention or 
allusion to the physical truth ; let him candidly 
observe a fact which our present study has just 
brought before us. It is in the Book of Job, in the 
least " scientific" age, and among the least scientific 
race of men, that we have but just now found the 
words " decrees " and "ordinances " that are cited as 
such mention. Even in this yiew, which is the more 
probable, that those words are mere figures of 
speech about what God does, or that they tell man- 
kind of invariable "laws of Nature " established by 
Him? 

Then, too, in the Book of Psalms, mostly com- 
posed some 600 years later, with all its glorious im- 
aginations, we find only one or two phrases upon 
which the same argument has been attempted. 
Thus, " The day is Thine ; the night also is Thine. 
Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou 
hast set all the borders of the earth. Thou hast 
made summer and winter " [lxxiv. 16, 17]. " He 
hath made a decree which shall not pass " [cxlvii. 
8], This, too, sets forth with poetic beauty the con- 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 93 

tinual power of God. As for any " reign of law," it 
rather denies, and certainly does not state that. 

On the other hand, the Psalms are throughout and 
everywhere ablaze with the glory of this vision of 
the immediate will of God in all things alike, 
whether in Creation, miracle or Providence. They 
summon every form of beauty to express this, per- 
sonifying and calling upon every creature to join in 
the chorus of worship. More than a thousand such 
passages could be cited. These are but specimens of 
them all. 

" This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and 
delivered him out of all his distress " [xxxiv. 6]. " O 
Lord, Thou preservest man and beast " [xxxvi. 6]. 
" These wait all upon Thee that Thou mayest give 
them their meat in due season. That Thou givest 
them they gather. Thou openest Thy hand ; they 
are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face, they are 
troubled. Thou takest away their breath ; they die 
and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy 
spirit, they are created ; and Thou renewest the face 
of the earth" [civ. 27-30]. Observe of this last pass- 
age, that all the things which we commonly speak of 
as the course of Nature are enumerated as the imme- 
diate acts of God j the support of all animal life, the 
withdrawal of that life, and the succession of it in 
others of the same kind. 

So also, when by a sublime figure of speech all the 
things which God has made are called upon to join 
with us in singing His praise ; even " dragons and all 
deeps ; fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind 



94 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE UEIGN OF LAW." 

fulfilling His word," no such things are supposed 
and summoned as " forces of Nature." Do you reply- 
that this would have been unmeaning to the men 
then living for lack of the science which we now 
have ? But why is it not there for these wiser gene- 
rations of ours ? Granted that the Word of God 
being meant to teach spiritual, and not physical, 
truth, might speak only of the former. Yet none the 
less if it did illustrate the former by the latter, He, 
to whom all truth is always known, would teach the 
spiritual by the natural truth, and not by repeating 
to men their superstitious ignorance. 

The writings of Solomon, which follow next in 
Holy Writ, tell us nothing of the " reign of law." 
Yet he was specially an observer of natural life, and 
given to philosophic reflection. These writings con- 
tain many mentions of Creation and Providence, but 
none of miracles. Some who maintain the "reign of 
law " have cited for their purposes what is said in 
the III. and VIII. Chapters of the Book of Proverbs 
concerning " wisdom." It may be that if this notion 
were otherwise and already proved, it would be a 
fair conjecture that those sublime and mystical 
words intended it. But that they are any proof of 
it, or would ever seem so, except by prepossession 
or prejudice in its behalf on the part of some who 
feel bound to secure for it some authority in Holy 
Scripture, seems to me most unlikely. Let them 
speak for themselves at length. 

" The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, 
by understanding hath He established the heavens. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 95 

By His knowledge the depths are broken up, and 
the clouds drop down the dew " [Prov. iii. 19, 20], 
11 The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His 
way before His works of old. I was set up from 
everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth 
was. When there were no depths I was brought 
forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with 
water. Before the mountains were settled, before 
the hills were brought forth. While as yet He had 
not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest 
part of the dust of the world. When He prepared 
the heavens I was there ; when He set a compass 
upon the face of the depth ; when He established 
the clouds above ; when He strengthened the foun- 
tains of the deep; when He gave to the sea His 
decree that the waters should not pass His command- 
ment; when He appointed the foundations of the 
earth — then I was by Him as one brought up with 
Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always 
before Him ; rejoicing in the habitable part of His 
earth, and my delights were with the sons of men." 
[viii. 22-31.] 

These words do not directly speak of a " reign of 
law." If any such force in them is claimed from the 
use of the terms "decree" and "commandment," 
this has been already answered in the comment upon 
the sentence of the Book of Psalms which resembles 
this. And so it would be a very fanciful assumption 
for any one to insist that to say that "wisdom " was 
with God in Creation is the same as to say directly 
that He in the beginning set up invariable " laws 



9b THE HEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW. 

of nature." We may leave it to any plain and un- 
prejudiced man whether we are not right in saying, 
that whatever it may say, it does not say that. 

Can we not, in all these mighty and mystical sen- 
tences, hear simply that the wisdom of God is 
greater and older than the stars? Must men have 
the notion of a "reign of law" before these other 
words have any meaning to them : " O Lord, how 
manifold are Thy works, in wisdom hast Thou made 
them all?" [Ps. civ. 24.] * Had all those sayings no 
sense to the fifty generations of men who read them 
before that notion was thought of? Have they none 
now to the vast number of honest Christians who 
like me believe them without that ? May we not 
even have a greater adoring admiration for that 
wisdom in immediate will and power? 

If devout men had never been able to find meaning 
in the words, and had waited in despair of it until 
modern science had offered this interpretation, we 
might, perhaps, allow it for lack of any other. But 
beside the sublime praise of Him whose " thoughts 
are very deep," which devout readers have found in 
'them from the first, we have an application of them 
made by the great Church writers of St. Athanasius' 
age. This has also seemed to speak, with the very 
voice of all the Church ever since/when it declares 
its belief that Our Lord was " begotten before all 
worlds." No orthodox Christian can lightly assume 
the "reign of law " as the reasonable application and 
dismiss this as the fanciful, when he has once noticed 
how to the first words, " The Lord possessed me in 



nOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 97 

the beginning "; these words respond from the 
Gospel : " In the beginning was the Word ; and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God." 

Nevertheless, let us further enquire whether this 
account of God's " wisdom " in the beginning, does, 
if not in terms, yet in substance and by fair reason- 
ing, teach us of a " reign of law." The Book of 
Proverbs is an instruction to us, not in physical 
science, but in morals and religion. With this pur- 
pose in all parts, and often it speaks of " wisdom," 
and personifies it as the true principle of men in their 
conduct toward God and their fellows. It repeats 
that great saying of the Book of Psalms that " the 
fear of the Lord (reverent and obedient love of 
Him), is the beginning of wisdom.* 1 [Ps. ex. 10. — Prov. 
ix. 10]. It tells the same great truth again in nearly 
the same terms as do other parts of Holy Scripture, 
and with such related sayings as that, " the fear of 
the Lord is to hate evil," &c. 

Thus, this very passage, fairly read in its connection, 
tells us of the great wisdom of God, as a reason why 
we should be wise in true religion and all goodness. 
Can we then with reason think that the Divine 
wisdom means the intellectual contrivance of the 
universe and the mechanical skill of setting it in 
motion, like a vast machine, as we sometimes call 
human inventors wise ? 

Finally, to do justice to both sides of this question, 

let us paraphrase and amplify, in that supposed 

sense, the words which are claimed as involving the 

idea of a "reign of law." Thus: "A wisdom which 

9 



98 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

was with God in Creation must mean that He econo- 
mized force and time by such arrangements of all 
matter (and spirit, too, for that matter), as that He 
might spare His continual attention and exertion, 
and might leave this creation to its automatic motion. 
This would be the highest achievement of a man in 
the use of force and motion, and so it must be ' the 
wisdom of God.' " 

That is really the argument. This is what the 
words mean, if in them God speaks to us of a "reign 
of law." What must we judge when ingenious men 
can find in Holy Scripture no better proof of their 
belief than such far-fetched interpretations as that? 
On the other hand, there is one thing said to all man- 
kind in the Holy Scriptures of God with much fre- 
quency, solemnity and plainness of speech, namely, that 
pride of intelligence is one of their greatest dangers 
and infirmities. " The Law and the Prophets/' the 
Gospels and the Epistles join in this, with only the 
difference that the New Testament, as the more com- 
plete and spiritual, is more express in such doctrine. 
Surely that folly could find no more dangerous ex- 
ercise than in reasonings about the works of God 
which are not full of humility and reverence. And 
thus, not to anticipate the commands of Our Lord to 
be as humble as little children, and the warnings of 
His Apostles against " man's wisdom," this divine 
" wisdom of Solomon," in the Book of Ecclesiastes 
as well as that of Proverbs, so far from encouraging 
us to put forth theories of what God must have done 
in the beginning, formed from our ambitious studies, 
teaches us to learn such things only from His mouth. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 99 

The very passage we have been examining is 
really a warning against such conceit. It tells us of 
the great and unapproachable glory of God in 
wisdom ; and then that, for us " the fear of the Lord 
is the beginning of wisdom." Beyond doubt to me 
this means that, instead of fancying that by intel- 
lectual research we shall come to know much of 
what He has done and is doing, it is reverence, 
humility and obedient love for Him that must pre- 
cede and accompany all such true acquirements. 
How well we all know that the science which insists 
upon a reign of law does not always begin or proceed 
with reverent piety. Some of its most successful 
votaries, as they advanced in and became absorbed 
in it, have receded from all religion. Theirs, then, 
was not the wisdom which Solomon commended in 
men, nor their favorite notion of " Nature " that 
which he, at the same time, was revealing to us as 
the wisdom of God. 

On the contrary, those inspired writings of his 
even agree with the rest of Holy Scripture in fre- 
quent mentions of all events as the immediate work 
of God. For example : " By humility and the fear 
of the Lord are riches and honor and life" [Prov. 
xxii. 14]. " A man to whom God hath given riches, 
wealth and honor," &c. [Eccl. vi. 2.] 

Examining next the Prophets, numbering fourteen 
different writers, and including more than a fourth 
part of tho Old Testament, we find them full of sublime 
mentions of Creation, miracles and Providence. Yet 
among two thousand such passages noted there are 



100 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE BEIGN OF LAW." 

only some six which have ever been cited as suggesting 
a " reign of law." Even then it is only by that un- 
reasonable process of seizing upon a slight verbal re- 
semblance, and imagining in splendid figures of 
speech something to be declared which no one 
would ever find there unless he were in search of 
support of a notion elsewhere derived. Thus they 
correspond to those brought forward by some in 
support of the same notion, from the other poetical 
books. The same observations apply to them and 
need not be repeated. 

They are as follows : " Pear ye not Me ? saith the 
Lord. Will ye not tremble at my presence, which 
have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a 
perpetual decree that it cannot pass it ? And though 
the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not 
prevail ; though they roar, yet can they not pass 
over it " [Jer. v. 22]. " Yea the stork in the 
heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle 
and the crane and the swallow observe the time of 
their coming ; but my people know not the judg- 
ment of the Lord " [Jer. viii. 7]. " Thus saith the 
Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and 
the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a 
light by night ; which divideth the sea when the 
waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is His 
name. If these ordinances depart from before 
me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall 
cease from being a nation before me forever " [xxxi. 
35, 36]. u If ye can break my covenant of the 
day and my covenant of the night, that there 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 101 

should not be day and night in their season, then 
may also my covenant be broken with David, my 
servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon 
his throne " [Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21]. " If my covenant 
be not with day and night, and if I have not ap- 
pointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then will 
I cast away the seed of Jacob," &c. \lbid. 25, 26], 

Of the first of these passages, it is an easy question 
whether it is literal or figurative. If the former, 
then has the sea a restless will, prone to disobey 
God ; tossing its mane in rage and roaring with 
baffled desire. But we none of us think that. We 
justly see in this a noble figure of the supreme will 
of God, in which even the mighty ocean is repre- 
sented as a self-willed, yet subjugated subject, upon 
whom, after such attempts, a perpetual decree of re- 
straint is imposed. The more careful our study of 
the words, the more it will appear that they suggest 
the opposite of " natural law," namely, the immediate 
power of God. 

So also in the second passage, the migration of 
birds is spoken of not as some mechanical order 
established at the creation, but as if each year they 
heard the voice of their Lord and obeyed Him. This 
is but a figure of speech to rebuke the disobedience 
of men who have laws given them and a will with 
which they can obey ? So it is ; and therefore least 
of all is it any proof of a " reign of law." The same 
judgment applies to the other sayings about " cove- 
nants " and " ordinances " of sun, moon and stars, or 
of day and night. The allusion of these is naturally 



102 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

rather to the spiritual and supernatural blessing 
bestowed upon mankind after the flood, than upon 
what was set up in the beginning. Anyway there 
is nothing about " laws of Nature " in them, but 
those great and gracious ways of God to us alike in 
" all things visible and invisible." There is in both 
the same free and instant power by which " He 
doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven/' 
in a usual, regular order of loving-kindness to men. 
And He reminds us of these covenants and blessings 
of things temporal to affirm other promises, even of 
spiritual good. We have as much right to reduce 
these to " natural law " as the others. 

But this is not all that we may learn about this 
question from the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets. 
To confront these few weak and far-fetched attempts 
at proof upon one side, we could summon from them 
thousands of sentences which reveal to us with direct- 
ness, the Great and Gracious One doing everything 
in "Nature " as immediately as when He said, "Let 
there be light ! " These few may represent them all. 

" Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath 
created these things, that bringeth out their host by 
number ; He calleth them all by names ; by the great- 
ness of Sis might, for that He is strong in power, not 
onefaileth. . . . The Everlasting God, the Lord, the 
Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither 
is weary ; there is no searching of His understand- 
ing " [Is. xl. 26, 28, &c], (How exactly does this 
agree with the thought that all things are and move 
by the present will of God, and not by forces which 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 103 

He set up thousands of years ago ! How naturally 
we can understand it is a reproof of those who think 
that men of our day have searched the understanding 
of God and found that He would u faint and be 
weary " with such constant work ; and that stars 
and seasons fail not, not " for that He is strong in 
power," but because of the might of an ancient " reign 
of law.") 

" When He uttereth His voice there is a multitude 
of waters in the heavens, and He causeth the 
vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He 
maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the 
wind out of His treasures " [Jer. x. 13]. " For 
wisdom and might are His; and He changeth the 
times and the seasons" [Dan. ii. 20, 21]. " And all 
the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing ; 
and He doeth according to His will in the army of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and 
none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What 
doest thou?" [Dan. iv. 35]. "The God in whose 
hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways " 
[Dan. v. 23], " Eejoice in the Lord your God, for 
He hath given you the former rain moderately, and 
He will cause to come down for you the rain," &c. 
[Joel ii. 23-27]. " Bring ye all the tithes into the 
store-house that there may be meat in my house, and 
prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I 
will not open you the windows of heaven and pour 
you out a blessing that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the 
devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the 



104 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast 
her fruit before the time in the field/' &c. [Mai. iii. 
10, 11;] 

Notice the natural force of all this class of pass- 
ages as compared with the others. Observe this 
contrast in the number, in their easy and obvious 
meaning ; in the divine power of their very words 
to " exalt the Lord Our God " and to increase our 
faith in Him. Do they not fit only to the thought 
that we may think of Him and adore Him and call 
upon Him in prayers, as One who does all things in 
person and now? If we could deny that these 
divine sentences directly teach men to think so, 
could we question that they encourage them in that 
thought if already entertained ? Does not the 
opposing notion of a " reign of law " jar harshly 
upon the sayings of the Prophets ? 

It is a favorite observation of our modern science, 
that in degree as men have been ignorant and super- 
stitious, they have ascribed all things to divine acts ; 
and that as they come to know more they learn that 
all these things are according to general law. This 
would apply exactly to these and all like sayings of 
the Old Testament. It would be in effect to say 
that men, moved by the Holy Ghost, misrepresented 
true religion, at least that God allowed them to echo 
and so to encourage the superstitious follies of igno- 
rance. Observe, in further objection to this notion, 
that these same teachings run through all the ages 
and all the writers of the Old Testament. They are 
in the story of " the beginning''; in the manly sim- 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 105 

plicity of thinking found among the free tribes of the 
first ages; in the intellectual and spiritual refinement 
of the first (and greatest) of the kings of Israel; in 
the first Prophets, who knew all the science and 
reasonings of the Chaldeans, and in the last of them 
who looked toward the dawn of " the new law." 
But it is by the last that our question must be mainly 
tried, by that " perfect day " of light intellectual and 
spiritual for all mankind, the New Testament of 
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 



106 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

CHAPTEK VII. 

EXAMINATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 

"TTTE come now to the brightest and plainest 
VV and complete Word of God written, "the 
New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ." We have already gone over that larger part 
of Holy Writ in which, as relating the Creation itself 
and four thousand years of Providence and miracles 
afterwards, we might have felt sure that we should 
find any truth there might be of a "reign of law, ,r 
told us directly and by many plain allusions. We 
have found nothing of the kind; nothing which 
could be so quoted, unless in the way of fanciful re- 
semblance or very remote conjecture. 

But in the Scriptures which we are now to 
11 search," we shall be sure to find the conclusive 
truth. These will either at last reveal " the reign 
of law" in ".Nature "; or dismiss the notion from 
our knowledge as untrue. Some of the greatest 
matters of religion were reserved to this New Testa- 
ment. The intelligence of man in divine things was 
in the earlier period treated as in a state of nonage. 
So we might suppose that the Creator reserved this 
disclosure of " natural law," or such recognition as 
complete religious truth must make of it, if true, ta 
the Church founded upon the Eedeemer of mankind. 
Now that " the Light of the World " appears in 
person, and the complete knowledge of God rises- 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 107 

upon earth like the sun, this truth would certainly 
no longer be withheld. At the very least, as 1 have 
suggested, there would be some notice of it in speak- 
ing of those matters in which it could not but touch 
upon the glory of God and men's faith in Him ; so 
that when these wiser ages of Christendom should 
come, men would see their faith in God to be in full 
aceord with that truth. 

The result of a careful study of the New Testa- 
ment is in general that there is not one word about 
" laws of Nature " in it, either of statement or allu- 
sion from beginning to end. On the other hand we find 
many (and nowhere else in Holy Scripture so many) 
statements and implications that God does all things 
by His immediate will. These things are not said 
with the inexact warmth and color of poetical ex- 
citement. Nor are they of those things in Holy 
Scripture (if there be any such) in which we might 
properly allow that the inspired man uttered the 
divine thought with some of the error of his preju- 
dice. They are the clear and calm voices, first of 
the Son of God Himself, and then of His Apostles, to 
whom He committed most distinct and intellectual 
utterances of His Word. 

In this case it was not even necessary to anticipate 
a thought which was not really to be known among 
men until after many unscientific centuries. This 
notion of law in Nature was already in the world. 
For more than three centuries it had been talked of 
by acute Pagan philosophers. What could we say, 
then, if such a great religious, or at least semi- 



108 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

religious, truth had no recognition in the perfect 
Word of God ? 

The Christian era begins with most magnificent 
displays of the supernatural. These are told in the 
Gospels in the most simple and natural way. Other 
incidents which no one thinks miraculous are related 
with them, and all alike as done by the immediate 
will of God. It is not even always easy to distin- 
guish in these glorious facts between what is natural 
and what is supernatural. Of such is the birth of 
St. John Baptist, which is foretold by a bright angel 
from God. When a similar message comes to the 
virgin mother of that altogether supernatural 
nativity of Our Lord, the Son of God, it is said even 
of John's birth, " With God nothing shall be impos- 
sible. " The glories of Bethlehem are recounted in 
the most direct and simple way, as if they had no 
intellectual difficulties for real faith, and without any 
of the apologies and qualifications which those who 
believe in "laws of Nature" cannot dispense within 
recounting the marvellous. 

This great event was followed by about thirty 
years of the ordinary life of the world. The divine 
history interrupts this first with the preaching of 
St. John Baptist. It is remarkable that he reproves 
his countrymen for a conceited security in " the 
reign of law " (as that notion was obscurely in men's 
minds,) with these words : " Begin not to say in 
yourselves, Wo have Abraham to our father ; for / 
say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise 
up children unto Abraham " [St. Luke iii. 8]. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 109 

Our Lord proceeded to His public ministry among 
men after a most sublime, mystical conflict with 
Satan,* in which twice occurs the occasion for Him 
to speak of " laws of Nature," if there were any such. 
The first saying of the tempter is : " If thou be the 
Son of God, command that these stones be made 
bread." Is His answer at all, or in substance, what 
even the most religious of our Christian men of 
science would say now ? Would they not say that 
the will of God was in fixed "laws of Nature"; or at 
least allude to these? The Lord's answer is, "It is 
written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God." This, as I apprehend, tells us with the 
greatest plainness, that our physical life is entirely 
dependent upon the immediate will of the Blessed, 
Eternal One; and this, whatever further reference 
to our spiritual good we may suppose in the words. 

The reply to the second temptation was another 
occasion to mention this truth of natural law, if a 
truth. The suggestion to venture upon a miracle of 
mere display is met, not by saying that it is impos- 
sible or even improper on account of a "law of 
Nature," and as it would not in this case be done to 
attest the Word of God to men. It is refused simply 
because it is not the will of God.f Let us notice 
that this is not so much because against that blessed 
Will, as not being positively called for by it. 

When this glorious Master of Wisdom goes to 

* St. Matthew iv. St. Lnke iv. 

|St. Matthew iv. 7— kk Thou ahalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' 1 

10 



110 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

teach mankind about their ordinary life, e. g. how 
they are to think about their food and clothing, He 
says nothing, even by most remote allusions, of this 
"reign of law." He speaks in such an unconscious- 
ness of it, as would now make our man of science 
smile if he overheard such teaching. He said simply 
and directly that God " clothes the grass of the 
field/' and feeds the birds, and, in the same way, 
<'adds unto " us whatever we need for our bodily life. 
He enjoins upon us to imitate Him who " maketh 
the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and 
sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust." He 
teaches us to live without care or fear, because not a 
sparrow falls to the ground without God, and because 
the very hairs of our head are numbered by Him. 

He teaches each soul of man to make this daily 
prayer, asking Our Father Who is in Heaven, " Give 
us this day our daily bread." (I would put these 
seven short words alone against all the ingenious 
philosophy that has reasoned of " natural law," 
the confident references to " a decree for the rain " 
and other such phrases of the Old Testament, and all 
the " painful " arguments used to persuade devout 
men that a " reign of law" does not forbid them to 
pray. The more those words are pondered, the 
more weighty they are in this question. Entangle 
your soul if you will in an intellectual demonstration 
that we men are but insignificant parts of a vast 
inexorable machine ; but with every rising sun 
remember to pray, not, Give me all knowledge of 
these unvarying laws in obeying which all my 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. Ill 

welfare consists ; but, " Give us this day our daily- 
bread. ")* 

He speaks again and again of things which are 
impossible to men, while " all things are possible 
with God " [St. Matth. xix. 26.— St. Mark x. 27.— St. 
Luke xviii. 27]. He tells them how to avail them- 
selves of that infinite power [St. Matth. xvii. 20, etc]. 
He says that if they are children of God, and the 
fewest of them combine in asking anything of Him, 
"it shall be done for them" [St. Matth. xviii. 19, 
etc.]. He does not limit this to spiritual and so ex- 
clude physical things. He makes a tree wither 
before men's eyes, and uses that occasion to say, " If 
ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say 
unto this mountain, Eemove hence to yonder plain ; 
and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible 
to you " [St. Matt. xvii. 20]. 

He Himself continually for three years " doeth 
great wonders." He heals incurable diseases. He 
replaces the utterly lost senses of men, and creates 
those senses in some who had never before possessed 
them. He restores others to life after they have 
died. He walks at night upon a raging sea amid a 
howling tempest, and by His words of command 
makes a great and sudden calm. He says of these 
miracles, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work," 
describing the power of God in all things visible as 
being like His, acts of present Divine will [St. John v. 
17], Yet in none of these instances, nor at any other 

♦After this was written I was not surprised to read of some (orthodox 
bnt) scientific Christian teacher who contended that this petition of the 
Lord's Prayer should be disused by all who understand the " reign of 
law." It is an irresistible corollary of that notion. 



112 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

time, does He talk of " forces " or " laws of Nature," 
or anything equivalent to them, nor make the most 
remote allusion to such things. 

Let us challenge the reconsideration and honest 
judgment of all Christian men upon these facts. 
Could they reasonably believe in a " reign of law," if 
the Gospels were only silent about it? But yet 
more, is it credibly true when with so many occasions, 
and we may even say necessities for Our Lord 
Christ to speak of it to men if true, not a word of 
the sort can be found to set against the mighty sen- 
tences in which He shows us the present power of 
God in all events ? And who is this " Word of God " 
in complete truth " without any mixture of error " ? 
What is He beside being the Witness of the Divine? 
He is the very person who would have made the 
" laws of Nature " if there were any. He is the One 
who, (if there be any truth in that notion,) " subjected 
Himself" to this " reign of law," of which evidently 
He knows nothing ! 

After Our Lord ascends into Heaven, the New 
Testament continues with a history of the Acts of 
the Apostles. Nowhere in this have we a word of 
"natural law." One of these Apostles is evidently 
well acquainted with the Greek philosophy, which did 
already contain at least the suggestion of " laws of 
Nature " and the notion (in germ) of their " reign "; 
but he nowhere mentions it. Some later Christian 
writers (whose works are not Holy Scriptures, nor 
they any way as safe guides to truth as this Apostle,) 
treat this and other notions of Plato as profound 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 113 

searchings into the truth of God, only less than in- 
spired. We shall seo later that St. Paul does 
speak generally of this " men's wisdom," but only to 
warn Christians against mixing it with their reli- 
gious thought. 

He did go to Athens itself, and "certain philo- 
sophers encountered him." That these at first were 
not Platonists, but " Epicureans and Stoics," does 
not alter the significance of this occasion. His 
great discourse at Athens was before an audience 
made up from all the curious and disputatious 
Athenians, among whom he might be sure were some 
Academics or scholars of Plato, as well as some 
Peripatetics or followers of Aristotle. He proceeds 
to speak of the One God, of Creation, and of all life 
and movement since. He gladly seizes upon the re- 
semblance of one of their superstitions (of "the 
Unknown God ") to the true religion, to teach that 
truth. 

But does He say, " Some of your philosophers have 
had divine light given them to perceive by their studies 
how God, in Creation, set up unvarying laws of 
Nature ; and unless He interposes in these in a very 
unusual way, all things proceed by their own force "? 
No ; but he does say what is in effect the exact oppo- 
site ; that " He giveth (not gave) to all life and 
breath and all things. ... In Him we live and move 
and have our being " [Acts xvii. 25, 28]. Much the 
same in substance had he publicly said once before in 
a heathen city [Acts xiv. 15, 17]. Thus, in all the 
Acts of the Apostles, while we have many miracles 



114 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

related without any suggestion that God then " sus- 
pended the laws of Nature," or the like ; and while 
Providence and prayer are often mentioned without 
any allusion to a " reign of law "; we have the imme- 
diate power of God in all things set against those 
opposite notions which were already in the philo- 
sophy of men. 

In the Epistles we have the truth of God given to 
us in the " scientific " form (as some would say), 
rather than the historical. Perhaps here, at last, we 
are to have a disclosure of the religious truth about 
''laws of Nature" ? But no ; it is not in the Epis- 
tles at all. They are (as we have observed in other 
parts of Holy Scripture,) thickly sown with occasions 
to speak of it, if true ; as whenever the great Crea- 
tion, or the good Providence, or mighty miracles, or 
gracious answers to men's prayers, are mentioned. 
Yet never was a more decisive " silence of Scripture." 

Nor is this all. They say things plainly opposed 
to that notion. "Every good gift and every perfect 
gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
Father of lights," etc. [St. James i. 17.] " It is the 
same God who worketh all in all " [1 Cor. xii. 6]. 
" It is God who worketh in you both to will and to 
do of His good pleasure " [Phil. ii. 13]. "According 
to the good pleasure of His will " [Eph. i. 5]. " Who 
worketh all things after the counsel of His own will " 
[Eph. i. 11]. 

It is unfortunate that these last sentences have 
been commonly (but not properly) assumed to 
speak only of what the Almighty One does to men. 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 115 

and in regard to their spiritual welfare ; and so have 
only been Tough t over in the great controversy about 
" free will." In so far as God is said to do all, while 
we are morally free, a fortiori (so much the more) 
are they true of all that is outside of a moral free- 
agency. It does not belong at all to this enquiry to 
treat of that great question. We may simply stand 
upon the truth, that if God has chosen to give inde- 
pendent action to free personal wills in some of His 
creatures, surely all others move and act only by Mis 
immediate will. 

But the last of those passages needs more critical 
notice, on account of the strange misuse of it by the 
great Hooker in the very question before us.* He 
maintains that to say " the counsel of His will," 
implies that it was not absolute will, but that God 
had to consider some abstract " reason of things " or 
a sort of eternal " reign of law " which would cer- 
tainly decide His choice. But let any one carefully 
study the word BouXyjv of the original Greek, and he 
will find that no term could have been used to express 
will more absolutely. In classic Greek it is the word 
always employed to express divine volition. It is 
unfortunate that our excellent English version 
should have here rendered it " counsel." Not that 
it could not be justified by many parallel passages 
where this very term " counsel " cannot possibly 
mean anything but will (as, e. g., Heb. vi. 17, " the 
immutability of His counsel ") ; showing the English 
word " counsel " may properly mean the secret 

* Eccl. Pol., Book I.— See more fully of this infra. 



116 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

purpose and decision of a will ; but it has given a 
chance for the misconstruction mentioned above. 
The sentence would, therefore, read most correctly 
in English, " Who worketh all things according to 
the wish of His own will." It was meant for the 
most precise and energetic expression of such abso- 
lute will without any suggestion — rather with exact 
exclusion — of anything like consultation, reasoning 
or motive, and yet more of any law for the Eternal 
Lord. If my reader could need anything more to 
convince him, he will see it in the passage I cited 
just before this one. It is in the very same exhorta- 
tion of St. Paul to his Ephesian converts, but a few 
verses before this, and evidently another noble ex- 
pression of the same great truth : "According to the 
good pleasure of His will." 

Nor would this study of the Epistles be complete 
without recalling attention to what St. Paul says in 
condemnation of" the wisdom of this world," etc., as 
compared with (or if mingled with) the knowledge 
of divine things which we get from the very Word 
of Grod. What he says of this at least includes, if it 
be not even specially intended for, such speculations of 
Plato, Aristotle, etc., as grew into the modern notions 
of " natural law " and its " reign." But we shall 
treat of this more fully under the title of the history 
of that theory. (See infra Chap. VIII.) 

But there is a certain other saying of St. Paul's 
which, though I am not aware that it has ever 
before been so suggested, bears powerfully, and I 
think decisively, upon this enquiry. If there is any 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 117 

writer who can be styled in a good sense " the Chris- 
tian philosopher," he may be. God gave him a 
mind to see the deepest general relations of things, 
and, what is much more, inspired him to write His 
Word with incidental mention of such relations in 
absolute truth. We might apply in expostulation 
with many a Christian thinker, his very words, 
" Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man " — who 
loseth thine own way in human metaphysics and 
bewilderest others! without a thought of what 
St. Paul and others " moved by the Holy Ghost " 
have, in the midst of the lessons of true religion, let 
fall by the way, about the " spirit, soul and body " of 
man. This has not been quite unnoticed ; but he who 
shall yet give the time and labor necessary for a 
complete treatment of this, will do a great work 
toward clearing up the obscurities and errors of all 
philosophy. 

Whether or not St. Paul had been instructed in 
his youth in the Greek and other philosophies rife in 
that age, (as some think) or not, he had been at 
Athens debating the high questions of religion with 
the scholars of Epicurus, Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle. 
It was after this that, u by inspiration of God," he 
wrote the perfect theory and argument of what was 
already in the faith of Christians, the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead. In this he adduces in 
illustration one of the very things which are certainly 
under the " reign of law," if there be any such thing. 
It was such a case that the favorite postulate of 
modern science, if true, could not fail to be men- 
tioned ; namely, the growth of a plant from its seed. 



118 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

But what is St. PauFs account of this ? " But 
some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? and 
with what body do they come ? Thou fool ! that 
which thou sowest is not quickened except it die ; 
and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
body which shall be, but bare grain ; it may chance 
of wheat or some other grain ; but God giveth it a 
body, as it hath pleased Him ; and to every seed his 
own body " [1 Cor. xv. 35-38]. 

It will be observed upon scrutiny that not only is 
" natural law " entirely (in lawyer's phrase) ignored, 
but that something else is affirmed, viz., that in each 
case of the growth of a plant from the seed, " G-od 
giveth it a body." Had the verb been " gave " there 
might be opportunity to argue that this meant some 
general gift of inherent power at the time of the 
Creation. The entire argument is against all un- 
believing notions of impossibility in anything which 
God says He will do. The special illustration here 
is that just as, with an attention and action which has 
no possible weakness or weariness, He in all vege- 
table growth, by His mere will, makes a plant follow 
a seed, so will He give each of us a spiritual body in 
succession to this natural one which decays. In 
both cases alike, a kind of identity and a succession 
of life between the new thing and the old is expressly 
recognized. The words, " and to every seed his own 
body," confirm this; while the other phrase, " as it 
hath pleased Him," emphasizes it all as His immediate 
act. Only see how the notion of a "reign of law " 
must needs have expressed itself in a like case ; thus, 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 119 

beginning with the 37th verse, "And that which 
thou so west, etc., but — it receiveth a certain body 
according to an invariable law established in the Crea- 
tion"; or "it receiveth a body developed by forces which 
were set in motion then and are never interfered with" 
(unless in express miracle, which was not all the case 
supposed by St. Paul) ; as Leibnitz actually says, "so 
that they are able of themselves to execute their 
functions. ,, 

The great Eevelation of St. John, which closes the 
Book of God, has no notice of " natural law," while 
it contains various sublime declarations concerning 
the works of God which agree only with His inces- 
sant and immediate doing of all things. Its awful 
and glorious visions of the passing away of the 
present Creation, recognize no repeal of existing 
" laws of Nature," but they might well suggest to us 
the falsity of any notion of a " reign of law." This 
should remind us that there really is in these Holy 
Writings one mention, by way of prophecy, of this 
notion and of its natural effect upon faith. It is this : 

" There shall come in the last days scoffers 

saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for 
since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the Creation " 
[2 Peter iii. 3, 4]. 

It is true, and I have already many times 
recognized it as true, that many who are by no 
means scoffers, but are sincere Christian believers, 
maintain the opinion which I suppose to be intended, 
or at least included, in the terrible censure of this 



120 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OP LAW." 

sentence of Holy Writ. This application of the 
words is founded upon the general sense of all Holy 
Scripture. For this question, and for the best result 
of all this present study, we shall do well to look to 
such general sense. We must not be at all satisfied 
with some success in finding passages which seem to 
favor our preconceived opinions, or with ingeniously 
" reconciling " others that were not so much to our 
purpose. The comparison and verbal discussion of 
separate verses of Holy Scripture has its illusions, and 
its tendencies to deviation from the direct pursuit of 
truth. It is, therefore, most useful to turn from this 
at last, however needful in its place, and take a fair 
look at the general spirit and effect of the written 
Word of God, and more especially of the New Testa- 
ment, as regards the matter in question. Let each 
of my readers then ask himself which of the opposing 
ideas before us agrees best with the whole tenor of 
the Book of God as we have now traversed it 
together ; or, according to his own careful reading 
and recollection, if he has preferred another method. 
We did begin that investigation in the order of 
time,. and with the Old Testament. That order has 
its value. But now, in this review and general 
result, the other order is most reasonable. The 
Gospel of Our Lord is the complete truth of re- 
ligion ; His Church is the kingdom of God on earth 
that is to last till time shall be no more. And 
especially as the notion which is upon trial is sup- 
posed by its adherents to be the result of men's later 
intellectual activity, it will if true find recognition, 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 121 

not in the dawn of God's Word in prophecy and 
poetry, but rather in that Divine light of clear in- 
telligence which followed, and in which true discovery 
found its greatest impulse. 

Now there are two general ideas of man's life, and 
his knowledge of what is around him, which we 
have to choose between. One is, that our best nature 
and aspiration is to regard this world and all in it, 
and all other worlds, as a vast and perfect machine, 
which only needs each of us to study and all to com- 
bine their results in collecting this knowledge, so as 
to learn about all its past and calculate all its future. 
The tendency of this idea is to persuade us that the 
present processes have had no real beginning and 
will have no end. And one of its corollaries is that 
man is an insignificant thing in all this vastness, and 
his individual life but a little floating bubble on the 
shoreless ocean. 

The other and opposite idea is, that we know first 
of a great Person, immensely greater not only than 
we, but than all beside Himself, who has told us that 
many ages ago He made us and all this for His good 
pleasure, and especially in order that we of mankind 
might know and love Him ; and that He will, we can 
never be sure how soon, make an end of " all things 
visible," and replace them with something better and 
more enduring, while spirits and persons (i. e. God, 
angels and mankind) will continue to exist : that this 
great change will be made (at least for one purpose) 
in order that we men may be raised out of a general 
degradation from the love of God and man, and un- 
11 



122 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

happiness, which has befallen our kind, and in which 
the Cosmos around us has a certain sympathy of dis- 
order ; that our chief concern of knowledge and hope is 
with this Divine and spiritual now, and that super- 
natural future; so that while we have cares and 
duties which must employ much of our time, and 
belong mainly to this life, and therefore some may 
well explore this universe and its usual order of 
cause and effect, and all may use this knowledge as 
it accumulates with the successive generations of 
men, this does not compare in urgency and value to 
us with the knowledge of God, and of how to regain 
our true life as He has given us that knowledge in a 
Gospel of mercy ; to regain this partially now, and 
afterwards completely and forever. 

Need I say that these two ideas of man's life are 
entirely opposed to one another ; that one cannot 
occupy a mind without displacing the other? Need 
I say that the latter prevails through all the Holy 
Scriptures ?* The other is I think in substance and 
essence, certainly in intellectual tendency, that of the 
" reign of law." 

So the Holy Scriptures always speak of pride as 
one of the greatest mischiefs of mankind, and espe- 
cially of the pride of knowledge acquired by our own 
observation and reasoning, as a weakness and danger; 
while the humility which would rather love truth as 

*If any Christian believers call for specific citations in support of this 
beside their general reading and the combined effect of a thousand 
verses, I refer them to such passages as these: "For we know that the 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, 1 ' 
[Rom. viii. 22.] " While we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen are 
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal," [1 Cor. iv. 18.] 
Are these at all accordant with the other idea ? 



HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 123 

told us by our Superior, is both more honorable and 
more sure. Thus they command and commend simple 
faith in God's Word. On the other hand, all such 
science as is founded upon the assumption of a 
11 reign of law," both promotes intellectual pride and 
makes religious faith more difficult. This tendency 
is well displayed in the remark often met with in 
modern books, that in proportion as ages or nations 
are ignorant of " natural law," they think whatever 
they do not understand to be Divine power ; but 
that as they become enlightened, they refer all such 
things to some invariable but unknown "law." 

Another such tendency is to assume that whatever 
high powers or valuable knowledge mankind have 
now, must have been reached by gradual intellectual 
improvement from the first ages, when man was in 
all respects a creature far inferior to his present 
a best estate." But Holy Writ without denying the 
low condition of all mankind, almost from the first, 
and especially of the great part of it which has been 
sitting in darkness of false religion, informs us that 
this is a fearful fall from the glorious " image of 
God" in which He created our first progenitors, to 
which we can only be gradually returning now by 
His mercy, and never completely in this life. 

Another such contrast deserves the notice of 
thoughtful Christians. All the writings and speech of 
our age are full of the term "Nature," meaning the 
whole universe of what God has created, as if it had 
a personality, or at least unity of organization and 
force in itself. One who should try to dispense with 



124 TIIE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

the term in this sense even for common conversation, 
would be astonished to find what difficulty and 
singularity of expression would be forced upon him. 
But the Holy Scriptures of God use no such term or 
any equivalent expression for the conception ; * they 
tell us of " the creation of God " and of His " works," 
but they have not from beginning to end anything 
of " the works of Nature " or of its making or doing 
anything. 

As the result of this study of the Word of God, it 
appears that the assumption of a " reign of law," 
which touches all the greatest questions of faith, 
has no recognition in the New Testament, nay, is 
quite expressly contradicted there. Is not this deci- 
sive? Nevertheless, if some sentences of the Old 
Testament are still alleged in behalf of that notion, 
we might proceed further to examine it throughout 
for all teaching which bears upon this matter. But 
if in this we have found the few alleged proofs to be 
bold figures of prophecy and poetry which by no 
means need mean what is claimed, while the whole 
tenor of Law and Prophets accords with the New 
Testament in teaching the present power and will 
of God in all things, then the proof of this is complete. 

There may be Christian readers of this who are 
still so loath to surrender what they have long 
accepted as certain truth, that they will not allow 
this test of it by Holy Scripture, upon the plea that, 
as the "reign of law" was a great truth which God 

*If any one question this by reference to any of the thirteen passages 
in which our English Bible gives the term "nature," he need but ex- 
amine them to be convinced. 



HOLY 6CRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 125 

meant to disclose to men only by their discoveries 
and reflections, and ages after His Scripture was 
given them complete, so He would not anticipate it 
by any mention or reference therein. But they can- 
not so think without refusing to God's Word Written 
such faith and reverence as are due. For to say 
nothing of its being silent about something which 
men were yet to discover for themselves, and yet 
which cannot be separated from the greatest questions 
of religion, the express words of Holy Scripture 
must have tended to encourage men of earlier days 
in what this notion calls a false thought of God. 
Even now those words forbid me to believe in a 
" reign of law." 

No ; this is rather a most clear and powerful illus- 
tration of the value of fixed institutions of religion ; 
fixed in words both of instruction and worship, which 
do not merely reflect the intellectual fashion of the 
passing age. Here is all our literature and the 
ordinary speech of men full of the false notion of 
" natural law," and tending to the universal acknow- 
ledgment of its despotic "reign." There stand the 
Holy Scriptures of God and, at least for the great 
and influential English-speaking nations, the words 
of Christian worship in their Common Prayer, how- 
ever obsolete to the greater number in this country,* 
silent about this " Nature," but responding with 
approval to the humblest voice that recalls a despised 

* Those of my readers who are disposed to agree with me so far in the 
main, but find this against their prepossessions, can easily enough pass 
it over. But /could not, in my purpose to " declare all the counsel " of 
this great truth, according to the observations and reflections of many 
years. 



126 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

and forgotten truth. It is the eager and self-sufficient 
human present corrected by Divine truth out of the 
past. It is mankind intoxicated and led astray by 
intellectual vanity even far down in the Christian 
era, yet called back to truth and salvation by the 
mercy of God. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 127 

CHAPTER VIII. 

History of the Notion of a "Beign of Law." 

"TTT"HEN we are making a faithful investigation 
VV of the truth and value of some opinion, 
nothing is better to clear the mind from disturbing 
prepossessions, than to study its history. This is 
especially so when the opinion in question has long 
prevailed and is strong in the authority of great men, 
both living and long dead. Such study leads us out 
of the fogs of prejudice and controversy, into clear 
air in which we see the actual objects of our thoughts. 
It shows us the first approaches and access to men's 
minds of the opinion in question : what then disposed 
them in its favor ; what confirmed this and extended 
it to many other minds ; what earlier and contrary 
belief may have once prevailed, and how that fared 
in collision with this ; and what still maintains the 
one against the other. If the now prevailing opinion 
be true, it will grow strong by this enquiry ; if false, 
we shall the better escape from its hold. Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer has a glimpse of this when he says that 
enquiring into the pedigree of an idea is not a bad 
way of estimating its value. In a great matter like 
that before us, we need more than pedigree ; we need 
a chronology — a real history. 

The history of " the reign of law " as of some 
other dynasties, has its difficulties. It loses itself in 
the region of mere tradition, and even "myth." 



128 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

Such notions, like other nebulous bodies, are often 
long in taking definite and final shape. Some of its 
patrons are certain that it came from Plato and 
Aristotle, or the ancient Greek philosophy in general 
effect.* Others are sure that it is entirely the pro- 
duct and crowning achievement of Modern Science.f 
Some even refer it to Holy Scripture ; but this, as 
we have already seen, cannot be true.J 

Each of the other theories is right in a measure. 
Some notions and phrases of the Greek philosophers 
and their scholars gave a certain direction of this 
kind to the language and assumptions of Modern 
Science. No one can find in Plato what is now so 
confidently imputed to him. He left in writing so 
many curious speculations, without caring about 
their consistency, and in so entertaining a way, that 
entirely contrary opinions have been since his day 
sincerely and zealously maintained under authority 
of his name. The nearest approach to the " reign of 
law " in Plato is where, among other such things in 
the Timseus ? § he says : " The Creator Himself being 
the artificer of Divine natures, committed- to His 
offspring (the inferior gods) the charge of producing 
those that are mortal v ; and " after arranging these 
particulars, He retired to His accustomed state, and 
His sons obeyed their Father's order." Those who 
know Plato only by the unmeasured praises and even 

♦Hooker's Eccles. Pol. Book 1st— McCosh on Positivism, etc. 

t Lewes' Aristotle; Fiske's Outl. of Cosmical Philos. I. 173, etc. 

$See also a fuller discussion of Eccles. Pol. Bk. I. infra Chap. IX. 

§ Cary's Transl. Bonn's Ed. ii. 380, 347. I quote this translation as 
being upon the whole as fair a rendering as can be given of this rather 
obscure passage. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 129 

worship of Mr. E. W. Emerson, or the only less 
extravagant admiration of some Christian writers, 
will be astonished at this gross polytheism ; but their 
surprise will pass away as we proceed in this investi- 
gation. 

In truth Plato, as also his master Socrates, was a 
pagan, though with some ideas of the Divine far 
above most of his countrymen. He was also a man 
of very uncommon quickness and strength of mind. 
He had travelled into far countries in search of wise 
men and of new ideas : certainly to Egypt, perhaps 
to Babylon and Persia. No doubt he had learned 
the doctrines of some of "the wise men of the East," 
who taught that there was but one God, but mixed 
this with various errors of religion. This was four 
hundred years before any of the New Testament was 
written, but long after the Old was complete. We 
have no certain knowledge that these holy books of 
those who were at least known to the inquisitive 
Greeks as the singular little nation of monotheists 
called Jews, had come into their hands. Yery likely 
they had learned something of the religious ideas of 
the Jews as well as of the Hindoos from the Egypt- 
ians or Babylonians, and were not.uninformed of the 
mono- (or duo-) theism of the Persians. And so from 
Israel rather than from their own deep thinking 
they really got what idea they had of One God and 
of His true character. And yet this was mixed with 
a vast deal of heathenish religion and false philosophy. 

For all of old Israel lived in a far greater light of 
truth than the wisest Brahmin, Persian or Athenian 



130 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

philosopher. What Abraham or Job knew by pure 
tradition from Adam, or by visions from Jehovah, and 
what of such truth the men of Judah and Jerusalem 
had besides in the Law and the Prophets, was as 
breaking day to moonless and almost starless mid- 
night, compared with the highest thoughts in re- 
ligion of all the heathen world. 

It was a strange perversity in men to whom 
"oracles of God" were given, that some ambitious 
Jews while captives in heathen Babylon, began to 
studjr the false notions of that people, and of the 
Hindoos and Persians, and to mix these with their 
true knowledge of God. The beginning of " philo- 
sophy and vain deceit" among the Jews dates from 
that time, as shown in the "Cabbala" and "Talmud" 
and such writings. And so during the succeeding 
600 years they imparted some ideas to the Greeks and 
copied some notions from them. The nations were 
all becoming mingled as never before by the wars of 
those times, and the subjection of all the others by 
the Romans. In the meantime Aristotle, who came 
just after Plato, and was more practical and consis- 
tent, though a less entertaining writer, had already 
made it a fashion of philosophy to talk about 
"Nature." This meant much the same as it does in 
common use in our day, i. e. all the world and life 
outside of us, as if it were a vast order which existed 
and lived and moved (at least as far as we knew or 
need think) of itself. So the very phrase "laws of 
Nature" begins to appear in the Latin poets.* 

* Dugald Stewart, Ment. Phil. (Sir W. Hamilton's ed.) 1. 158-162. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 131 

Yet there was no such distinct assertion of a 
11 reign of law " as we have now. A God or gods 
were supposed to govern all things. There was a 
certain collection of writings extant then and already 
translated into Greek, which spoke in thousands of 
places of the One True God immediately doing all 
things.* We may now mention this, not adducing 
it here as decisive of the truth (though it is so), but 
simply as a fact of history showing that the idea of 
"the reign of God," the contrary of the other, was 
known to some men. But evidently by the time of 
Our Lord's advent, the more intellectual and ambi- 
tious Jews were far gone from this truth and faith 
of God, through their studies of Greek and Oriental 
philosophies. In religious opinion they were strongly 
and sternly Unitarian, abhorring the Greeks for 
their many gods. Yet in fact and spirit they 
neglected the true Word of the one God committed 
to them alone as a people, and (i went a whoring 
after " vain inventions of pagans. It is a curious fact 
that in this the irreligious philosophy joins with the 
false religious superstition. Even Mr. G. H. Lewes, 
who scorns our faith, saysf that the notion of forces 
acting of themselves in Nature came first from the 
deification of the great movements which men ob- 
served. It was thus with the Greeks, whose idea of 
religion for ages had been of a god for every great 
object or movement which they saw. So that even 
when Plato came to the conception of One Supreme, 
he still held to the many inferior deities, and assigned 

* We found this out in the thorough investigation of Chap. VI. 
t Lewes' Aristotle, p. 86. 



132 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

to them what si mply belongs to the Only Real and True. 
Indeed, thus only can we imagine how the true re- 
ligion of primitive man had sunk into the grotesque 
and hideous idolatry of intellectual Greece and 
rational Rome, as well as of all the rest of the world, 
except little Israel. Even if we believe (as have 
some great Christian writers, both ancient and 
modern,) that this false worship is described by Holy 
Scriptures as in fact that of evil angels,* this deify- 
ing of " Nature " and its "forces" may still be 
thought the intellectual process by w T hich men " de- 
parted from the living God " to these other religions. 
With this agrees the only historical account which 
Holy Scripture gives of that dreadful degradation of 
mankind. For in the famous passage of St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Romans which is so much misunder- 
stood and misused, describing the process by which 
they thus " changed the truth of God into a lie," he 
says that "they worshipped and served f the crea- 
tionX more than the Creator." Add to this that it 
describes them as those who "did not like to re- 
tain God in their knowledge " in the sense of peni- 
tence, humility, self-denying obedience and devout 
love. These might reject idolatry, wholly, as the 
Jewish scribes did, or partly as the Greek philo- 
sophers ; but they also would see all real power in 
"Nature" or its " forces." Thus we already see the 
two false tendencies which obscure the true know- 
ledge of God — from opposite directions, yet con- 

•1 Cor. x. 20, 21. 

t'Efcif pevaav, i. e. gave latria or divine homage, as in idolatry. 

JNot "creature," aa in the A. V. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 133 

verging and concurring to favor the notion of a " reign 
of law "; the one idolatrous and polytheistic, the other 
worldly and atheistic. 

Perhaps there already appeared also a reinforce- 
ment of these tendencies, which has been very 
powerful in modern times, the (at least apparent) 
convenience of this notion for scientific research and 
generalizing. To an acute man like Aristotle, of pagan 
birth and education, who has set himself only to 
learn what he can of this world, it was veiy natural 
to personify " Nature/' to say that " she " obeyed 
"laws " in all these motions : to imagine this really 
all the Divine that we really know of, and yet treat 
it as a vast and curious self-acting machine, which 
we are to study and understand by degrees. Not 
far removed from this was, and by almost irresistible 
transitions indeed proceeded, the atheism of some of 
the Greeks and Eomans of that time, especially 
displayed in the elegant poem of Lucretius, De 
Eerum Natura. Eemember that all this was of " the 
wisdom of this world," when St. Paul wrote his 
famous sentences about that, without excepting any 
of it from his censure. 

Then rose upon mankind a sun of spiritual light, in 
which even the illumination of Israel was but little 
to be distinguished from the " darkness " in which 
eat every other people in the world. The Word of 
God was present upon earth as a man. What He 
said as remembered and recorded ; what He did for 
a complete redemption of "the whole world"; what 
His Apostles and other ministers said and wrote in 
12 



134 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

books of the New Testament, " as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost "; what that Third One of the 
adorable Trinity of God has said through the per- 
petual Church in all the ages since, — this is pure and 
complete light of truth in religion. We all know 
that this light was not to shine at once upon all 
mankind, but to follow a growth of extension by the 
Church, from one small tract of the world, until the 
earth should be full of this knowledge, or the Lord 
should consummate all by a second appearance among 
mankind as the universal sovereign. 

But who (except as he sees the like done in our 
days) would suppose, that men upon whom this 
heavenly truth did shine, would wish to interpret or 
improve it by the writings of any groping pagan of 
a former age ? A Christian might, e. g., admire 
Plato's elegant language, the entertaining wit with 
which he leads his reader along through the most 
abstract reasoning, and even the flash of some great 
thought of goodness or of the Divine, which appeared 
in the midst of much superstition and other spiritual 
darkness. For this he might well adore Him who 
not only gave to Plato the glimpse, but to himself 
such light of day, for his ill use of which he meekly 
repented before God. He might humbly and lov- 
ingly pity those who did thus " feel after Godwin 
the dark lands and days. But could he actually 
study the pagan writers as intellectual and spiritual 
masters in the knowledge of God's Word? 

Some may say, that he must be very narrow- 
minded who would not learn the beautiful teachings 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 135 

of Prof. Tyndall about light (physical) because he is so 
wrong in his notions of religion. Why then might 
not a wise Christian avail himself of whatever truth 
heathen philosophers had written ? Ought he not 
to? Would not neglect to do it bring just reproach 
upon the true religion, and even be the cause that 
the more spiritual and intelligent pagans would 
never come to that light of the Gospel ? 

In answer to this we ought to consider first, that 
the Greek philosophy knew almost nothing of " sci- 
ence " in the modern sense. It rather held such 
knowledge in contempt. All that a man would 
learn by the study of Plato (beyond some idle or 
mischievous fancies) would be certain speculations 
upon the beginning and cause and continuance of all 
things — the nature of man's soul, its duty and 
destiny. These are essentially religious questions. 
They are answered truly, and as fully as we can 
comprehend them, by the Word of God. To construe 
that, or try to improve upon it by the groping 
guesses of a heathen man, brought up in idolatry 
and practising it in some measure all his life, and 
low in much of his actual moral conduct, could not 
but be irrational. When we know that he also in 
these fine speculations rather taught that matter 
was eternal, was only shaped and set in motion 
(not created) by the Supreme One, and had been 
always since kept in motion and controlled by a 
number of lower gods,— then surely this study of 
Plato by Christians could only " darken " the bright 
" counsel " of God by misleading " words " (of intel- 
lectual ambition) " without (real) knowledge." 



136 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

And so it did in fact. The Lord had set up a 
society of all believers in Him which should endure as 
long as the world, and should proclaim His Gospel to 
every soul of mankind. Some men joined this society 
in the first ages who were not only acquainted with 
the philosophies, but began to try and state the 
faith of the Church in that language, or even accord- 
ing to those systems of thought. They may have 
fancied they w T ere thus beautifying or adding to the 
truth of the Gospel. With some it may have been a 
fancy that this would bring honor to the Church, 
and draw other intellectual men into it. With others 
it may have been that they were unwilling to give 
up the flattering superiority over their fellow-men 
which knowledge of the " <7o<pta" (wisdom) or 
" <pdo<jo<pia" (love of wisdom), or " yvcDtq " (know- 
ledge), of the Greeks or of the rationalizing Jews, 
seemed to imply* 

One of the Apostles we have already had occasion 
to notice, was by previous study and experience, 
acquainted with this philosophy so as to observe its 
first appearance among Christians. We find that he 
spoke of it in writing his wise counsels to the Church 
at Corinth about twenty-five years after the Ascen- 
sion of Our Lord (and also by inspiration inditing 
God's Word to all mankind). Eemember that this 
epistle was written to Greeks in one of the richest 
and most ambitious cities of that land. It is true 
that a considerable part of that church was made up 
of Israelites engaged in trade at Corinth. St. Paul 
takes notice of some of their Jewish prejudices. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 137 

But none the less would they as well as the native 
Corinthians understand what he said of " <to<pla " to 
mean the philosophies of Plato and others. If then 
he had meant to allow at all, much more to applaud 
(as some Christian writers do now), the use of this 
philosophy in religious thought, and only to guard 
against some possible misuse of it, he would (rather 
God who spoke His Word by him, would) have so 
said distinctly. 

He was censuring divisions or parties among them 
caused by their mixing other notions with the pure 
Christian truth. I give the words [1 Cor. i., &c] 
more precisely as they would have come to the minds 
of the Corinthians, than our excellent A. V. expresses 
it. " Christ sent me .... to proclaim the Gospel, 
not with philosophy of speech (cocpia Xoyotj), lest the 
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For 
the speech (kayos') of the cross is to them that perish 
foolishness ; but unto us who are saved it is the 
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the 
philosophy (<7o<pta) of the sages, and I will brkig to 
nothing the intelligence of the intellectual. Where 
is the sage? Where is the writer? Where is the 
disputant of this world ? Hath not God convicted 
of folly the philosophy of this world? For after 
that in the (true) wisdom of God the world by 
philosophy (its false wisdom) knew not God, God 
was graciously pleased by (what the world of philo- 
sophy fancied) the foolishness of the proclamation 
(of His Gospel) to save those believing it. While 
also the Jews demand a sign from heaven, and the 



138 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Greeks seek for philosophy, we proclaim Christ 
crucified — to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the 
Greeks foolishness, but to the chosen ones, Jews and 
Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the 

wisdom of God (vs. 17-24) For you see the 

choice of you brethren, that not many wise (in a 
worldly sense), not many mighty, not many high- 
born are chosen. But God hath elected the foolish 
things of the world to put down the sages, and 
weak things of the world has God chosen to put 
to shame the strong. And low-born things of the 
world and things despised hath God chosen, etc. 
.... But from Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who 

has become to us (real) wisdom of God, etc 

that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let 
him glory in the Lord." (vs. 26-31.) 

" And I, brethren, coming to you, came not with 
pre-eminence in manner of speaking or philosophy 
(ao<pia) declaring unto you the testimony of God. 
.... And my familiar speech and my procla- 
mation of the Gospel were not in persuasive words 
of human philosophy, but in manifestation of the 
Spirit and of power ; that your faith should not be 
in the philosophy of men, but in the power of God. 
Howbeit we are speaking of (real) wisdom among 
the mature, yet not the philosophy (ao<pia) of this 
age, nor of its masters who pass away. But we are 
speaking of wisdom of God hidden in mystery, 
which God ordained before the ages for our honor, 
which not one of the masters of this age knew ; for 
had they known it they would not have crucified 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 139 

the Lord of glory For what man know- 

eth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man 
which is in him : even so the things of God knoweth 
no one but the Spirit of God. Now we have 
received not the spirit (inspiration) of the world 
(xoff/xoq) (the world's spirit may know the world's 
things), but the spirit (inspiration) which is from 
God, that we might know the things which are 
freely given to us of God; which things we speak 
not in the words which man's philosophy teacheth, 
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing 
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural * 
man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, 
for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know 
them because they are only spiritually to be discerned 
(not by intellectual exertion, but by our souls 
obediently receiving knowledge of them from God). 
But he that is (in that way) spiritual judgeth all, 
but he himself is judged by no one. For who hath 
known the mind of the Lord, that he mav instruct 
Him? But we possess (by His gift of grace to us) 
the mind of Christ." (ii). 

In quoting the entire passage so that my read- 
ers may form a just judgment of the writer's 
real meaning, I have only for the sake of brevity, 
omitted (at the places indicated . . .) a few sen- 
tences, which would rather have strengthened the 
effect of the whole as now given. But in order to 
bring out the verbal allusions and antitheses which 

*That is, man fallen from the original image of God ; (that is, perfect 
love of Him, which includes the spirit of perfect obedience), and with 
only his intellectual apprehension, however quick and bright that may 
be. 



140 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

were plainly in St. Paul's mind, and to show pre- 
cisely what he so strongly condemned, I have had 
with regret to change in a few places the excellent 
language of our English Bible, but not at all to 
another sense. The word aocpia occurring fourteen 
times in the Authorized Version as " wisdom," is the 
very favorite term used by the Greeks for their 
philosophy, which they claimed to be the only wise 
discourse about the Divine, and its works, and the> 
duties of men. And so I render it when St. Paul 
speaks of men's pretended knowledge of Divine 
things. When it denotes God's Word to us about 
these things, I translate it as what it is, perfect 
".wisdom." So with eocpoi, meaning those who 
claimed to have gained this knowledge by their 
reason; I name them " philosophers " or "sages." 
The like method is used in the other variations from 
the words of our generally admirable authorized 
translation. Thus we get what St. Paul said just 
as he meant it for the Corinthians and as they 
understood him. 

Observe then, first, that his condemnation of all 
this ao<pia of men is without qualification, and with- 
out exception. He does not say, " Epicurus is bad, 
but Aristotle excellent: beware of the Stoics, but 
study the Academics (or Platonists)." He does not 
say, like some now, " take no notice of the supersti- 
tions of the philosophers, trifling mistakes which ad- 
hered to them from their less enlightened age; but 
admire and use their acute speculations upon the 
making and order of the world, upon the human soul 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A u REIGN OF LAW." 141 

and its greatest good. Adjust these to the new 
doctrine of Christ, or rather, interpret it by them." 

Evidently St. Paul thinks that they who have the 
full daylight of God's Word in Himself* its Gospel, 
would only bewilder themselves by the dim lanterns 
of the philosophers: that they cannot learn anything 
from such masters without entering the region of 
religious thought, and that following them there is to 
go away from truth and toward error in religion. 
And so men cannot know the things of God except 
as He directly reveals them. God had made such a 
revelation to these men of Corinth by him and his 
fellow Apostles and in the Old Testament. It would 
not only not add to this Divine knowledge for them 
to mix with it the philosophy of heathen men, or of 
any men, but this would obscure the heavenly light 
and mislead them. It would certainly promote that 
very self-sufficiency and vanity which it is the 
greatest interest and only true glory of men to rid 
themselves of, in glad devotion to the ever blessed 
God. " That according as it is written, he that 
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."-}* 

I do not know how this can be otherwise under- 
stood by candid Christians, unless they can show 
either, first, that coyta was not the very term used and 
understood to represent the speculations of the 
"philosophers," or secondly, that Plato and Aristotle 
were entirely unknown to St. Paul or expressly ex- 
cepted by him from his censure; or thirdly, that 

* " The Word was God."— St. John i. 1. 

t The same grand and generous truth recurs soon after in Chap. iii. 
18-23. 



142 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

there is nothing in their writings which touches 
questions of religion at all; or fourthly, that Chris- 
tians following those philosophers were then, or in 
later ages, or are now, safe from the spiritual harm 
(for which no intellectual advantage could make 
amends) of falling thereby into a vainglorious self- 
conceit, which would cloud their faith and chill their 
love ; or finally, which neither I nor those whom I 
address can properly suppose, — that they under- 
stand the real interest of God's truth better than he 
who wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians. 
Some one, or really rather all of these things must be 
proved to allow of any Christian's following a notion 
of Plato or Aristotle in questions any way bearing 
upon our faith in or our understanding of God's 
Word. 

But we have positive proof that St. Paul's mind 
had been turned before he wrote the words in ques- 
tion to this very error of the Greek philosophy : its 
claiming to tell how the Divine power made and 
moves the universe, and its suggestion of forces or 
laws of Nature. When he came to Corinth first, five 
or six years before the above letter was written, he 
came direct from Athens, but a day's journey distant, 
which might be called the city of the philosophers. 
While there only as a waiting traveller, "certain 
philosophers . . . encountered him," and from mere 
curiosity to know what " this babbler" would say — 
this barbarian with a new religion, as they would only 
regard an Oriental Jew, — drew him into a public 
discussion. In this he went at once into some of the 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 143 



chief questions which all of these philosophers, and 
notably the famous Athenian Plato, had claimed to 
answer: i. e., about the First Cause of all things, and 
how He maintains all that exists. Yet while ready 
to make use of any pleasing allusion (even to their 
false worship) which may incline these Athenians to 
receive the Divine truth he has to teach, he does not 
use or make any sort of allusion to Plato's philo- 
sophy. He does not put forth this philosophic 
notion of a " reign of law " claimed by some as one 
of Plato's great thoughts, and in a measure implied 
in his writings; though if it were true, he could in 
his actual argument hardly fail to do so. What he 
does say, as it seems to me, plainly forbids that notion. 
Thus: "God that made the world and all things 
therein . . . giveth * to all life and breath and all 
things . . . though He be not far from every one 
of us ; for in Him we live and move and have our 
being. "f 

But this, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, is 
not all that St. Paul had to say of the philosophy of 
his age. Four years after that was written, per- 
ceiving that he was drawing near the end of his 
"course," and "good fight" of the faith, he sent 
out several other letters to churches and persons. 
These epistles express all the matureness of his ex- 
perience and thought, and have the special solemnity 
of a concern for those to whom he would speak for 
the last time. The man and the Apostle were anxious 
and careful for that pure truth of God w^hich he 

•*' Griveth," not gave. 

t See also Rom. xi ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Col. i. 16, 17 ; Rev. iv. ll t 



144 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

might soon no longer defend among men. We may 
say this with truth of Paul, the good and great man, 
even though it were not, as it is, the chief fact, that 
in these epistles God speaks directly to mankind by 
inspiration. Thus did the Holy Ghost foresee, and 
provide in them such warnings as the Church would 
need in all ages. 

One of these epistles is written to the church at 
Colosse, and in it is this sentence : " Beware lest any 
man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, 
after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the 
world and not of Christ." — [Col. ii. 8]. As the term 
" philosophy " was so well known to St. Paul, as 
describing to all who spoke or read Greek in that 
age, the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and other such 
speculators, he would surely use it in that sense. 
He already knew this philosophy well as hindering 
the Gospel, and had long before been anxious about 
this effect of it. So also the Spirit of God intending 
these holy writings for all the ages, would use the 
term in this its simple meaning. What is said by 
way of description of the philosophy, corresponds also 
with what the same writer wrote to the Corinthians. 
It is something which professes to improve by human 
thought, upon what God has directly spoken to men. 
It is ''after the tradition (i. e. by the communication) 
of men," who, however ingenious and eloquent they 
may be about inferior matters, can only speak " vain 
deceits," — perhaps deluding themselves as well as 
others when they profess to discover from the 
" elements of this world," — from their weak conject- 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 145 

ures and self-sufficient arguments, something about 
God and His ways. 

After this censure of philosophy, St. Paul proceeds 
to tell the Colossean Christians how great and suffi- 
cient is the knowledge of spiritual things given us 
by the Word of God, and especially as Our* Lord 
spoke in person and in all His life and His royal 
power now. Then he answers them, that neither 
need they regard what any of their visiting fellow- 
Christians might insist upon about strictly keeping 
the old law of Moses. It seems probable from this ; 
that some such visitors had come to Colosse. And 
so he connects this with his warning against the 
Greek philosophy, as being indeed of the same real 
origin in the intellectual vanity of men. He describes 
them all alike, as " intruding into those things which 
they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly 
mind." [v. 18]. 

We read the same thought in his first Epistle to 
Timothy, written a year later, especially at the end 
of it, where he charges that bishop after his death to 
keep the Word of God safe from mixture with 
" oppositions of science, falsely so called." [1 Tim. 
vi. 18]. 



13 



146 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 



CHAPTEE IX. 
History — Continued. 

ABOUT a hundred years later, all the Apostles 
having long since died, we find some accepted 
writers among the Christians praising, and in part 
following, the Greek philosophers. The writings of 
Plato were the most used in this way, because he 
seemed to say sc*ne Christian things, (as e. g. of One 
Supreme God, to know whom was the greatest glory 
and felicity of man). His Christian admirers declared 
that Plato and the other philosophers were indeed 
at the best far from the light of God in the Gospel ; 
knew nothing of a great part of that truth, and the 
rest of it but partially and doubtfully. But instead 
of following the counsel of St. Paul and using only 
the better knowledge of the Word of God, they per- 
sisted in an attempt to explain and improve upon 
this, by that which, if it had any value, was far 
inferior. Their best reason should have told them 
that this was not wise ; but it was even more con- 
trary to that Word of God. 

The motives of even good men are often so com- 
plex that we can only guess at them. But we may 
fairly suppose that these Christian admirers of 
philosophy thought this the best way to resist those 
who argued out of the philosophers for false doctrine, 
or against all the Christian" faith ; and that they 
supposed they were " adorning the doctrine of God 
Our Saviour" with these so famous names. Some 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 147 

(as Justin Martyr, excellent in many ways) had 
been " philosophers " before they were Christians, 
and retained some of their former admiration for 
Plato and some party spirit as his followers. Along 
with this perhaps were some remains of a vanity of 
reading and intelligence superior to that of their 
plainer fellow-Christians. 

Fifty years later, Clement of Alexandria writes 
with even more admiration of the philosophers and 
devotion to them. This is a natural result of the 
first departure from Christian good sense and obe- 
dience mentioned above. It shows how any use of 
the mere speculations of ingenious men who lived 
and died in heathen darkness, along with the bright 
Divine light, could only obscure that light to us. 
To mingle such men's reasonings with the actual 
Word of God, and construe it by them, even with 
the most laborious effort to separate their heathen 
errors from their best sayings, could do it no pos- 
sible good, and would lead Christians aside from the 
truth. Thus Clement of Alexandria in the next 
generation went astray in the same direction still 
farther than Justin Martyr. And so did Clement's 
pupil, the noble, brilliant and pious Origen, fall into 
yet worse errors than his master.* Still there were 

*It is true that all these, Justin Martyr to begin with,— affirming 
truly that Our Lord is the source of all light,— declared that He must 
have revealed it in a measure to Socrates and Plato. This is true in the 
sense that they (and we) should acknowledge His goodness in all know- 
ledge. But it is no reason why we should go to pagans to learn His truth 
or to interpret His Wor€ Written. The humblest Christian laborer in 
Alexandria was more " taught of God " than Plato. But for all that, did 
Clement or Origen ever go to such a man to explain Holy Scripture ? If 
Milner's Ch. History had no other merit (which is far from true), it 
deserves praise above any other within my knowledge for its plain words 
about this false philosophy.— [See Miln. Ch. Hiet. I., Cent. II., chaps. 
3 and 9, &c] 



148 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

at this very time some plain and wise pastors of the 
Church who protested against this folly and recalled 
the warnings of St. Paul.* But the others were the 
more skilful writers, and had in their favor with all 
the ambitious, even with many private persons who 
flattered themselves by agreeing with the famous,-— 
the influence of intellectual vanity. 

The wrong tendency upon the whole kept increas- 
ing. The Christian religion became more and more 
that of the majority, and especially that of the 
refined, the scholarly, and the ambitious. Were 
some of these true, humble, obedient believers ? They 
were still beset by the temptation to mix their read- 
ing of the elegant pagan writers of Old Athens and 
Eome with the Christian doctrines. Nor were their 
studies outside of Christian writings confined to 
these. All the crowd of religious notions from India, 
Persia, Egypt, and the un-Christian Jews (whose 
Talmud and Mishna were the Hebrew philosophy), 
which had zealous teachers and cherished writings — 
all were eagerly studied. Their fancy and ambition 
was to make all these tributary to the pure truth of 
God, taught by His Church. The real effect was to 
obscure that truth to themselves and to those whom 
they taught. 

Certainly surpassed by no other of these Christian 
writers was the great Augustine, whose personal 
efforts and influence then, and in every age since 
his powerful writings, have done so much for the 
Church. Yet even he promoted this error by his 

* Among others Hippolytus, and later EpiphaniuB and Chrysostom. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 149 

ambitious study and extravagant praise of Plato. 
So also he speaks incidentally of " Nature " and its 
11 laws." Yet in the same writings* we find plain 
statements of the immediate power of God in all 
things natural or supernatural, such as we might 
expect from his penetrating spiritual and devout 
mind. 

Chrysostom, a Greek himself, and so understanding 
the danger better, cites the divine warning against 
vain philosophy without making any exception of 
Plato and Aristotle.f So also Jerome sets forth the 
plain teaching of God's Word, as to His incessant 
present power, — however in other places he may 
negligently use the opposite language of the philo- 
sophers.;); These two living in the same age with 
Augustine, are scarcely inferior to him among the 
great Christian Doctors. 

On the other hand when, as might often happen 
then as well as now, writers were Christians by pro- 
fession who were not so in heart, they remained the 
same worldly, ambitious philosophers which they 
may have been before, and only attired their opinions 
as such in a sort of Christian language, and tried to 
pass them off for doctrines of the Church. 

But not long after this all the ambition of scholars 

*"Si Dei bonitas se rebus sustrahat, ad nihilum relabentur," x. 
(Mignet) 858. "If tbe goodness of God should withdraw itself from 
things they would fall back into nothing.'" " Dei potentia et Dei 
voluntas, Deus ipse est. — Ea est causa existentiae," i. 736. " The power 
of God and the will of God are God himself.— That is the cause of 
existence." "Semper operatur et semper quiescit," i. 868, ii. 1554. 
u He is always working and always resting. 1 ' 

t Such passages of St. Chrysostom are well known to readers of his 
sermons, but the means of exact reference are not at my hand as I write 
this. 

X On St. John v. 17. 



150 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

and writers, as well as almost all the reading and 
knowledge of God's Written Word, perished with the 
Greek and Roman Empires when they were over- 
thrown by barbarians. In the long period of intel- 
lectual darkness which ensued there were in effect 
no writers. Those were " Dark Ages " not only for 
the lack and disuse of books, even of " the Book of 
Books/' but because Christian doctrine as taught by 
the pastors of the Church had become obscured and 
perverted by notions and ceremonies not according 
to the Blessed Gospel of Our Lord. 

At the first revival of ambitious study after some 
four hundred years of such darkness, the eager 
students of Europe applied themselves to some Mo- 
hammedan writers, who having found in the con- 
quered libraries of the East copies of Aristotle's books 
of philosophy, translated them and adapted them 
to their liking. These Saracen students were men 
of keen intellects. The only religion they knew was 
that false one of the Koran, which was compounded 
of parts of God's Word as given to the Israelites and 
to the Church, and of sayings of Mohammed in imi- 
tation of that, together with " blasphemous fables" 
of his invention. The followers of the Koran were 
by means of that divine truth contained in it, im- 
bued, and, one might almost say, saturated with the 
thought of the One God as opposed to the many gods 
of Pagans, (and also alas! as this polytheism was in 
a measure held by the unfortunate Christians of 
those Dark Ages). Prom this great thought some 
of them seem to have ascended to its companion 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 151 

truth, that God now and always does all things. 
Such was Ai Gazel of Bagdad in the eleventh or 
twelfth centuries. His book, " Destruction of the 
Philosophers, " rebukes the irreligious spirit of Plato, 
Aristotle and all their followers. What a rebuke to 
Christians now ! careless of that truth, or utterly 
blind to it as they have it in such glorious light of 
the Divine Word I 

Others of the Saracen scholars were not so wise. 
Their religion neither satisfied their intelligence nor 
checked their doubts, by the actual Divine power of 
Truth given from above, and so above men's reason- 
ings. They followed the acute speculations of the 
Greek writer into a kind of theoretic atheism, (called 
pantheism in our day,) which, when charged with by 
their fellow Musselmen, they denied, but which in 
the writings of Averroes, Avicenna, etc., is much the 
same as that of Spinoza four or five hundred years 
later.* 

* Sir William Hamilton seems to attribute to Averroes in his work 
against Al Gazel, (Destruotio Destructions) the same idea of immediate 
Divine power as was maintained by the latter. But I cannot understand 
his quotations in that sense, and take Averroes for a mere Aristotelian, 
— pantheist and atheist at that. Sir W. H. actually names Al Gazel as 
the inventor of this true idea of God's will and power !— seeming really 
to imagine that nobody had ever before dreamed of what he thought 
such a strange speculation. This is a strong instance of the blindness 
with which a great scholar and acute reason er, because pre-occupied with 
some other notion, can overlook what is in " Holy Scripture and ancient 
authors " under his eyes. How far Al Gazel may have gone in denying 
human Free Will, (as Sir W. H. seems to charge him with doing,) upon 
what is called in later Metaphysics the theory of" Occasional Causes, 1 ' 
is not so plain. It would be very natural for one who had no better 
religion. Yet I have never read in mere human writing a nobler 
expression of wisdom and truth about that, than what is quoted from 
him by one of his own religion, in a curious letter cited in the prelimin- 
ary discourse of Sales' Koran, p. 120 : " Ut sapientissimus Sidi Abo Hamet 
Elgaceli, (i. e. Dominus Abu Hamed Al Ghazeli) affirmat (cujus spiritu 
Deus concedat gloriam ! Amen!) sequentibus verbis: Ita abditurn, et 
profundum, et abstrusum est intelllgere punctum Mud Liberi Arbitrii,—ut 
neque characteres ad scribendum neque ullce rationes ad exprimendum sufflr- 
ciant, et omnes quotquot dehac re locuti sunt hceserunt confusi in ripa 
tanti et tain spaciosi maris.' 1 '' 



152 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Christian students of these writings rejected their 
religious notions (as they distinguished these), with 
a real abhorrence. They used the books, they said, 
only to learn the logic and natural history of Aris- 
totle, which they had not in the Greek original. 
They meant and labored with that logic to make a 
treasury and system of Christian doctrine. For this 
they collected and arranged under different heads, 
sentences out of all "the Fathers/' that is, the 
accepted Christian writers of former times. As all 
of the Fathers down to Augustine's day, beside their 
general soundness and consent, had some errors and 
contradictions ; and those later than he were more 
and more imbued with the growing false doctrines, 
the " schoolmen " argued with very skilful logic 
to make a consistent system of all this, and make it 
all appear to accord with Holy Scripture. This was 
" rationalism " instead of simple obedience to the 
Word of God. In the same way they appropriated 
from the Pagan and Mohammedan philosophers the 
unspiritual and mechanical idea of " Nature." 

Before the Eeformation, the genuine and original 
writings of the Greek philosophers began to be 
brought into Western Europe, and to be in the hands 
of studious men ; for there were then beginning to 
be many such students besides monks. Plato's and 
Aristotle's books were regarded as a sort of Holy 
Scriptures of philosophy. Parties even were formed 
as between them. Some preferred the former in oppo 
sftion to the monks, who knew the other best and 
admired him. But another reason why many inde- 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 153 

pendent thinkers preferred to be Platonists was, that 
Plato's speculations are more in the direction of re- 
ligion, and seemed to promise them more freedom, 
at least in thought, from the hard and arbitrary and 
minute system of dogma which then passed for the 
Christian faith. 

The general insurrection of men's intelligence 
against this irrational authority in philosophy of mere 
tradition, gained force sooner than the return to 
Apostolic and Catholic truth of religion. Each of 
these contributed much to the force and success of 
the other at the time. But, of course in this alliance 
the latter tended to go beyond truth in the dangerous 
direction of intellectual vanity. Books were multi- 
plied by new writings and by printing. Students 
and inventors swarmed in all the countries of West- 
ern Europe. " Philosophy " began to consist, not 
merely of arguments about how this great universe 
came to be, or how we think or know anything, but 
of the wonderful things we know by our senses; 
about animals, plants and stars ; life, disease, and all 
that makes up our present " natural sciences." The 
misty talk of Plato about " eternal ideas," or " the 
soul of the world"; or of Aristotle about "Nature" 
as some vast thing existing in a sort independent of 
God, (though nominally subject to Him, and possibly 
liable sometimes to be interfered with by Him,) was 
easily adjusted to their studies. Unless then the 
students were very careful to be humble and devout 
Christians, their studies tended away from religion 
and toward presumption and unbelief. 



154 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

Some of the modern philosophers were men of 
most powerful minds, as the Pole Copernicus, the 
Italian Galileo, the great Englishman Bacon, and the 
great Frenchman Des Cartes. These are but a few of 
many such students in those days, some others per- 
haps equal to those mentioned : all striving to extend 
the knowledge of the sensible universe, and to invent 
new contrivances for the use of men. Such "men of 
science" have been continued in succession since, to 
our day. 

It early became the general fashion with these to 
speak of " Nature," and of what they discovered as 
"laws of Nature." It was convenient for such in- 
vestigation. Many of the most famous of them were 
devout Christians, who had no thought of making 
difficulties for our faith, or of placing their greatest 
discoveries upon any equal ground with God's Word. 
For others it had this further convenience, that it 
saved them from speaking or thinking of the Great 
God; so that all their thoughts might be only busy 
with their ambitious studies. The Church theo- 
logians and all Christian pastors were too much en- 
gaged in their controversies of doctrine to notice this 
then (or since). Even when it was displayed in 
some quarters as open unbelief of God's Word, they 
did not seem to perceive this notion of " laws of 
Nature " at its root. 

Yet some great voices have been raised against it 
even among the chief philosophers. Bacon, whose 
merit and authority among them is excelled by no 
other, if it do not excel all others, is rightly one of 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OP A " REIGN OF LAW." 155 

our witnesses; for while he also speaks of "laws of 
Nature," it is never with the notion which is now 
current, of an automatic mechanism. All such ex- 
pressions as used by him are not those cold theories, 
but rather of the inimitably rich and beautiful imagery 
in which he clothes dry abstractions without ob- 
scuring them. On the other hand he expressly 
rejects the authority of Plato* or Aristotle. But 
still more, he begins his wonderful opening to the 
human mind of the vast future of discovery, with the 
declaration of a humble and adoring faith in the 
Word of God, as altogether more valuable and more 
certain than all that man can discover. He affirms 
the innocence and value of science if, and only if, we 
keep within religion, and warns us against attempt- 
ing to change or construe the latter by the former. 
" For if any man shall think, &c. Therefore attend 
His Will as Himself speaketh it" &c.f Using the 
figure of two books, one of Holy Scripture, the 
other of Nature : "for that latter will certify us that 
nothing which the first teacheth is impossible."! 
Whoever will reflect upon these words will see 
they mean the exact reverse of what is the present 
scientific fashion under the "reign of law," and even 
of the Christian men of science. So that we really 
have the authority of "the Prince of Philosophers," 
whose suggestions were so wise that we might 
almost say that all modern science has come from 
them, for our proposition, that the notion of a " reign 

* Calls him a sophist. 

i Vol. I. 217, 218, Interp. of Nature. 

% Ibid. p. 221. 



156 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE HEIGN OF LAW." 

of law," with its necessary corollary that the Word 
of God is subject to interpretation by men's dis- 
coveries, is an untruth and a folly. 

Des Cartes was not so sagacious as Bacon in the 
direction of physical science, so he has had far less 
influence with its votaries since. His studies were 
more metaphysical and in the region of the spiritual 
facts. But he too, like Bacon, being enlightened by T 
a devout Christian faith, escaped the irreligious mis- 
takes common in such studies if pursued with mere 
pride of intellect. Breaking from the fetters of 
Greek philosophy, as well as of the technical logic of 
the Middle Ages, he reflected upon the soul of man, 
and the creation of it and of all else, in the white 
light of God's Word rather as this reached him 
generally and implicitly in the Church, than as in the 
very Holy Scriptures. In this "luminous wisdom of 
faith he saw that what we are apt to call causes 
and forces are only links in the chain of effects : that 
there can be no real cause or force but in a Will. 
Man has such a will, very limited and weak in force. 
God has the Almighty and all-including Will. Thus 
he refuted this false idea of mechanical " Nature"; 
showing that we do know that God created all, and 
does personally and immediately and incessantly 
create and move all things; and that any " second 
causes" or continued " forces of Nature " imagined 
by us to be necessary to God in His works, are the 
mere fictions of our weak intelligence in the attempt 
to comprehend Him, the Unlimited, by our limited 
nature. 



HISTOIiY OF THE NOTION OF A " KEIGN OF LAW." 157 

This is the essential and primary idea of true re- 
ligion living in the Church of God. It accords with 
the devout faith of all Christians, whether their 
thoughts have ever travelled so far or not, and even 
if they think they believe those false notions of 
"natural law," etc. This is the simple meaning of 
the whole Book of God. It no way hinders the in- 
crease of knowledge to men. They behold the Infin- 
ite One doing all things usually with a sublime 
regularity, upon which they can employ their fore- 
thought and make their studies. In presence of this 
truth all intellectual difficulties about faith, miracles 
and prayer, vanish. 

If we compare Des Cartes and Bacon, we see that 
there is no contradiction between them as regards 
this matter. It did not fall within the range which 
the latter set for himself to treat of the real Force in 
the created universe, but only of the phenomena 
which we observe. Thus his contending for " second 
causes" and speaking of "laws of Nature," had ill 
consequences not intended by him in his less re- 
ligious successors. The other did turn his thoughts 
to the One Force, and rose with the strong wing of an 
" eagle soaring in the sun." But with most of his 
countrymen his knowledge of Christian truth came 
only from teachings of a Church not yet reformed 
from the errors of the dark times, and which, unlike 
that of England, did not teach its members to study 
that truth for themselves in the Holy Scriptures. 
So he did not seek and prove the true doctrine of God's 
Will as the one Force, as a religious but as a phik> 
14 



158 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

sophical fact ; not, as we should, chiefly by the Word 
of God, but only by ingenious reasonings from the 
mind of man. In this " false position" of the con- 
troversy, his arguments, though superior and really 
unanswerable, were not as efficient with scientific men 
as those with which others contended for "second 
causes" and "laws of Nature "; the more so, since 
some physical theories of Des Cartes were refuted by 
the researches of Newton and others. 

It is a great mistake of late writers of no small 
pretensions, and is a great wrong done to Des Cartes, 
to associate his name with those of modern skeptics 
in religion, and even say that he is the father of this 
unbelief.* He said truly of all human science, and 
especially of the metaphysical, with which he was 
most occupied, that the beginning of all true know- 
ledge was to doubt. His writings and his life all 
imply that as regards knowledge from God in His 
Word and Church, the beginning and the end is to 
believe. This is as regards both kinds of knowledge; 
the exact opposite of modern doubt, which could 
therefore be ascribed to Des Cartes only by great 
ignorance or effrontery. 

On the contrary, his great intellectual demonstra- 
tion of the " Eeign of God " was so much too religious 

*Even one so respectable as Christlieb, and from whom we might 
expect real research and accurate statements, says ("Mod. Doubt and 
Christ. Belief, 11 p. 5.): "Such thinkers as Des Cartes, Spinoza, etc., etc., 
proceeded with more or less temerity to unsettle all traditional religious 
convictions," &c The writer must have taken this at second hand from 
some of his Spinozist countrymen. It suits well enough their spiritual 
stupidity and their purposes, to drag one of the noblest Christian 
thinkers into the company of unbelievers ; but not a champion of faith. 
Perhaps he took it direct from Kuno Fischer, who is cited in the New 
Am. Cycl. as authority for the same monstrous assertion. Are our books 
of reference and facts to be made up in that way ? 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 159 

for the men of science of succeeding times, that even 
his high renown scarcely saved it from utter oblivion. 
How many know of it now ? or of those few, how 
many regard it with any interest, or otherwise than 
as one of the absurd theories of a barren speculation ? 
When his countryman Malebranche, a very acute 
and profound thinker, repeated it a half century 
later,* it was neglected and forgotten in the same 
way. 

Yet at this very time a Jewish atheist, Spinoza, 
professed to assume the ideas of Des Cartes and pur- 
sue them to further necessary conclusions. These 
results of much perverse ingenuity of argument were, 
that there is no God except that Universe, which Des 
Cartes had shown to be, not only once created by 
the mere will of God (who alone and eternally existed 
before it), but as also only existing since and now 
by His incessant Will. Could untruth go further 
than to assert, that he who had most clearly reasoned 
of God as the sole personal self-existent and incessant 
Creator of all things, was the author of the notion 
that there was no such Person at all ! but that He 
(or rather it) was only what it had created ! This 
last notion is the so-called " Pantheism " of Spinoza, 
which the atheistic Jews and some atheists of Chris- 
tian birth declare to be the flower and consummation 
of human reason !f 

* Yet he too without that primary reference to Holy Scripture and 
proof thereby which would have made it most clear and strong, and 
saved it from oblivion now as a doubtful speculation. 

t It is an instance of the mock virtue called " charity" in our age, to 
avoid simple truth because it is not pleasant to some persons. T© 
" call names " in the sense of epithets meant to be spiteful and wound- 
ing, is foolish and wicked. To call things and persons by their right 



160 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

This horrid travesty of spiritual religion, if not the 
real result of the notion of a " Beign of Law," is cer- 
tainly far more in accord with it than the Christian 
ideas. Yet, while it could not displace those ideas 
upheld by the Church and Word of God from the 
general belief of Christendom, this notion of Law 
prevailed more and more in all modern science. It 
overflowed out into literature, and indeed we have 
long had among our English classics a poetical 
treatise upon it in Pope's Essay on Man. It pene- 
trated theology, and formed natural alliances on the 
one side with those hard " systems " of doctrine 
which have a great affinity for its dry, cold, unspir- 
itual, unmystical and unloving temper, — and, on the 
other, with the a natural religion" and " natural 
theology" which strove to give the least possible 
offence to philosophic unbelievers, by being as little 
Christian as possible. 

• But to notice this succeeding history somewhat in 
detail, let us begin with the authority of a man, the 
weight of whose name in favor of the erroneous 
notion of "Law" cannot be disregarded wherever 
the English language is read. I mean Eichard 
Hooker in his first Book of " Ecclesiastical Polity." 
This is the more noteworthy as it includes an attempt 
to prove this notion as a matter of religion and 

names is a duty to God and to our fellow-men, which we must not evade 
for the flattery of being called "liberal" and " large-minded." Thus 
while I may not deny the harmless life of Spinoza, and am even touched 
by the story of his studious poverty, yet I call him an atheist because it 
is true. And to aid in blinding any one who is tempted to take up with 
such doctrinal notions for religion, would be a great wrong to such a 
person, and a more cruel crime than all the hard sayings that have been 
written of Spinoza. This is just as true as if Schleiermacher had not 
written his insane rhapsody of praise to Baruch Spinoza. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 161 

from God's Word. Upon examination we shall be 
able to account for so strange a persuasion of this 
great man, and to see that it need no way disturb our 
judgment of the truth upon its real grounds. 

The " Ecclesiastical Polity " is allowed on all hands 
to be a work of remarkable sagacity and eloquence ; 
profound and serious in thought, and animated as 
with a soul by devout and reverent love. This has 
made it one of the classics of the English language, 
even with those who do not accept its conclusions. 
The first book receives this universal praise the more 
because it does not pass upon the disputed questions. 
In fact, it is only an eloquent prologue to the real 
argument, and not essential to it. The author set- 
ting out in this way to magnify " law," readily adopts 
the vague and false notion of Greek philosophy* 
about this, as some " eternal idea " which God Him- 
self obeys in Creation and in " Nature." It is an 
irrational guess from our nature to God's Will and 
Works, such as Hooker himself wisely deprecates/}* — 
and then follows. 

But then, like a good English Christian, he will 
say nothing of God for which he may not at least 
think he finds something in God's Word. (The true 
method indeed is to begin with that, and only think 
and say what we have first found there.) We have 
seen in Chaps. VI. and VII., that nothing in Holy 
Scripture can be connected with this notion of 

* He indirectly discloses this source of the notion when he begins hi3 
account of it : " The wise and learned among the Heathen," etc.— 
Sec. 2, vol. 1, p. 73. 

tSee the passage of Sec. 2, beginning, ,4 Dangerous it were," &c, 
quoted at length infra. 



162 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

"Law," except by a slight verbal resemblance in 
some figurative expressions. On the other hand, the 
opposite truth is plainly and powerfully declared in 
a thousand places. Compare Hooker's own state- 
ment : " All things (in which he expressly includes 
God Himself) do work after a sort according to law," 
&c, with what he cites for it, the mystical account of 
Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs : " The Lord pos- 
sessed me in the beginning of His way, even before 
His works of old was I set up." 

But in another quotation he makes an argument 
upon a plain mistake of the meaning of the original, 
which in fact declares to us the opposing truth, that, 
at least so far as we men are to know or imagine, 
the ultimate reason for everything is, the loving Will 
of God. He says, " They err, therefore, who think 
that of the will of God to do this or that, there is no 
reason beside His Will. Many times no reason known 
to us ; but that there is no reason thereof, I judge it 
most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as He 
WOrketh all things xard ttjv BooXtjv too OeXrjiiaros 
avroD — not only according to His own will, but " the 
counsel of His own will. (Eph. i. 11.) And whatso- 
ever is done with counsel or wise resolution, hath of 
necessity some reason why it should be done," etc. 

I need only refer my readers back to the notice 
of this very passage in Holy Scripture (see Chap. 
VII.), as we have already observed its meaning. 
In such use, BooXrj does not suppose consultation or 
reasoning, but mere will. # That sentence would 

* See all dictionaries of classic Greek. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 163 

most correctly read in English, " Who worketh all 
things according to the wish of His own will."* It 
is in fact a most distinct and sublime declaration, 
that the Eternal One, Who is Love, does all things 
immediately and is under no imaginable " law." To 
say, "Nor is the freedom of the will of God any 
whit abated, let, or hindered by means of this, because 
the imposition of this law upon Himself is His own 
free and voluntary act," does not help the matter at 
all, and is only a variation of the same presumptuous 
fiction. Indeed, this eloquent rhapsody of Hooker's 
first book has passed for wisdom more upon the 
beauty of its concluding sentence, " Of law there can 
be no less acknowledged," etc., than that the argu- 
ment was convincing or even intelligible."}" Against 
this let us set another sentence of his, which is both 
very beautiful and wise : (If he himself had followed 
its counsel, he would not have reasoned about a 
reason or law above God. For let us not forget that 
there is a profound difference between the ideas of 
the Will of God being the absolute and supreme law, 
and the Will of God being always according to law.) 
" Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to 
wade far into the doings of the Most High, whom 
although to know be life, and joy to make mention 
of His name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know 
that we know Him not as He is, neither can know 

* There is a fine suggestion of this in the very title of the legislature 
of the present kingdom of Greece— the " BouU" or Nation's Will. 

rDugald Stewart remarks upon the like eloquent nonsense in the first 
book of the Esprit des Loix of Montesquieu, which talks in the same way 
of "law." and has thus passed for the best part of a work of which it ia 
in fact the only unmeaning and worthless part. 



164 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Him ; and our safest eloquence concerning Him is 
our silence, when we confess without confession that 
His glory is inexplicable, His greatness above our 
capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth : 
therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and 
few."* 

After Malebranche, however, we hear no more 
among students or writers of this as a religious 
question. The fashion of literary as well as of scien- 
tific thought was only to speak of "Nature" and its 
"laws " as a self-acting mechanism. Even the pious 
Sir Isaac Newton uses that language, yet with a 
reverent caution which by no means insists upon a 
" reign of law." His contemporary, Leibnitz, whom 
some of the Germans think the greater philosopher, 
was less wise. He quotes the language of Des Cartes 
and his followers in maintaining the immediate Will 
of God as the only force, saying that they convert 
the universe into a perpetual miracle. He says,f 
"You degrade the Divinity; you make him act like 
a watchmaker, who having constructed a timepiece, 
would still be obliged himself to turn the hands, to 
make it mark the hours. A skilful mechanist would 
so frame his clock that it would go for a certain 
period without assistance or interposition." 

The German philosopher is entirely unconscious 
that it is he who would " degrade the Divinity," by 
making of His every way infinite power and most bles- 
sed will, a mere question between skilful or unskilful 
mechanism. That which is so gloriously plain to 

*Eccl. Pol. Book I. sec. 2. (i. p. 72). 
t Aa quoted by Sir William Hamilton. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 165 

" the spiritual man " in the true thought of God, was 
not " discerned " by this worldly " natural " philo- 
sopher. 

Confining our attention now rather to the English 
people of this and the succeeding age, we find the * 
intellectual temper merely intellectual, unspiritual 
and worldly. Even the best divines show this in 
their writings. They are so anxious to be rational, 
that they suppress any earnestness of faith or fervor 
of love of God. They deal in abstract terms, and 
personify them in a cold, colorless, and lifeless way, 
instead of speaking of the real things and persons of 
their religion. Never until the last two hundred 
years did men read or hear about " Christianity." 
Now, all our religious books are full of it. What is 
11 Christianity " ? The word is not in Holy Scripture. 
It is not in any of the treasures of godly wisdom and 
love which have come to us from the great ages of 
faith. It is not in any liturgy, confession, ritual, or 
book of devotion, or evangelical counsel which dates 
back of this affected and timid age. It did not need 
to be at last invented to describe that truth of God 
which had been known for one thousand six hundred 
years, and which had its own divine words from the 
first. It is an empty, chilly word, behind which any 
error can lurk, and any spiritual cowardice skulk in 
the hour of battle and danger. 

With it belong the unmeaning distinctions of 
"Deism" and " Theism," the shadowy, indefinable 
and treacherous fictions of a " Natural Theology "and 
"Natural Eeligion," and the multitude of other cold 



166 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

and weak abstractions which in our religious language 
we have substituted for the strong, honest, fact- 
words of our ancestors of three hundred years ago- 
All this accords with the mechanical idea of Nature. 

Thus passed the eighteenth century, with Hume 
and others perplexing believers with adroit difficulties 
of belief founded in great measure upon this very 
false notion of " laws of Nature "; and Christian 
writers making ingenious replies, which yet failed of 
the force they should have had, because they too 
allowed the false idea. Even the great Bishop 
Butler suggests, though he does not assert it, and 
somewhat weakens his great argument of" Analogy " 
by diluting it with " Natural Keligion." * 

Much in the same way has the nineteenth century 
so far proceeded. There is from other causes more 
earnestness and fervor in many Christian writings, 
but the false notion of a mechanical Nature appears 
in almost all of them more positively and frequently. 
It pervades all reading as never before. We inherit 
in " modern thought " a curious compound of Chris- 
tian ideas (or terms), those of the French infidels of 
a century ago, of the German rationalists of all 
shades and shapes, and of the inventions and self- 
sufficiency of the most restless mechanical and 
money-loving age of men. 

It is true (and thanks be to God for this !) that 
formerly (and it is so still in some measure) this 
held good rather of the world of books and of 

*If the author of the " Reign of Law " had understood Butler better, 
and Imitated his masterly caution in asserting nothing positively which; 
he did not know, he would have done much better. 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 167 

writers, than of Christian men and women at large. 
Alongside of this literary and scientific world exis- 
ted the great Divine society of Christians, including 
some of the before-mentioned persons, but more of 
others : a society with its own books in all people's 
hands, and in which the Holy Ghost "dwells." 
The Church was indeed affected by the degrading 
intellectual influences, but was not subjugated by 
them. Thousands upon thousands lived and died 
within it who were often thinking of God imme- 
diately doing everything about them. All its true 
members " implicitly " believe this, even though 
thinking and talking of "laws of Nature." 

Thus there have not been wanting within the 
Church through all this time, very spiritual and 
eloquent men who have spoken the great truth.* 
Yet this seems not at all known to our latest Chris- 
tian writers. If known at all, it must seem to them 
as some sublime mystical nonsense, and not what it 
is, the truth of God, and the sufficient answer to all 
the objections to faith in Him which are built upon 
the false notion of a " reign of law." 

We should be thankful to Our gracious Lord that 
this error, most dangerous when disguised in other 
forms of speech or diluted by qualifying phrases, is 
at last presented to us in a book with that very title. 
It is but another instance of its subtlety, its preva- 
lence, and its irresistible tendency, that this book is 
an honest attempt to defend faith against its assail- 

♦Leighton, Fenelon and many others. It has been the author's 
purpose to collect in an Appendix, or otherwise publish a collection of 
such citations. Bat this must be omitted, or at least postponed for the 
present. 



168 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

ants. That the book receives much favor, and no 
criticism as regards its essential and fatal error, is a 
symptom of the same which cannot be mistaken. 
The cold and deadly despotism of mere unspiritual 
science over Christians could not be more plainly 
shown, than by the fact that such a title of a 
Christian book should produce no other sensation 
than gratification, that a Scottish nobleman would 
volunteer to defend our faith, and a persuasion that 
we are all bound to accept and commend his argu- 
ments. 

The title of this book is indeed a more important 
thing than its contents. Some things in it are very 
well said, if it were not for the substance and effect 
of the whole. But it is not at all a mere question of 
words about that title. The arguments may fail to 
convince, or may be forgotten. But the mention of 
the book recalls the false idea with a sort of authority. 
And this idea is the mischief. To have a true 
" knowledge of God/' we must get rid of every 
notion of any other dominion than His. " Under 
which king ?" is the question to be answered. 

A " Eeign of Law " is the same in substance as 
making " Nature " a (not to say the) God. Law is 
not God. The true thought of the One Eternal 
Person is obscured by such phrases. It is our 
unhappy, perverse self-degradation, which " hearing 
the voice of the Lord God/' seeks to hide itself from 
Him " among the trees of the garden." No, it is He 
"with whom we have to do." We cannot love 
"law"; but the supreme need and law of man is to 



HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 169 

love God. Any word or notion that sets up to reign 
over all things seeks His power, no matter how well 
words are marshalled to declare that by this we 
mean to maintain true religion. 

The zealous Christian champions who concede 
the false notion, cannot exorcise it of the demon of 
unbelief. The mischief grows with the advance of 
natural science. One of the most eloquent and 
earnest of those entangled in the net of this wrong 
concession, has to admit that " modern natural 
science as a rule " is atheistic, in this very way. He 
says : " It talks so much about the laws, that at the 
present time, the latter in the view of numberless 
laymen are becoming independent divinities, each 
absolute lord in its own special domain, and repudiat- 
ing all interference from God Himself. The old 
heathen personified the forces of Nature, and made 
them demi-gods : we do the same and call them laws. 
The heathen, however, were rational enough to place 
these individual lesser gods in subjection to the Most 
High, while we invest our Maws of Nature* with 
sovereign power, in whose august presence the very 
hands of God Himself are tied and bound. In our 
time therefore, natural science has become the main 
support of the separation made by Deism between God 
and the world." * 

* Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 198. The last italics 
are that author's. 



15 



170 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

CHAPTEE X. 

AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OF MAN. 

HAYING, as is the proper order of this investiga- 
tion, looked for knowledge first in God's Word, 
and then traced the history of human opinion, we 
may now wisely study it by our reason in some other 
aspects. One such most useful study will be its 
relation to the free-will of man. Many shallow and 
some deep thinkers drop their plummets into the 
great abyss of the conjunction of the human with the 
Absolute will, and then come to us to report the 
exact measurements. I make no such attempt. I 
believe it a mystery immeasurable by human speech, 
and unfathomable by human thought. Yet none 
the less do we all know that this responsible will of 
ours is free, and yet that the Infinite Divine Will 
always prevails. 

But this repose in the mystery by faith and reason 
is invaded by a gratuitous perplexity, if we entertain 
the notion of a "reign of law." We know as a 
transcendant fact that there is an immense distance 
between us and " the Blessed and Only Potentate "; 
and so we can calmly believe in His Supreme Will, 
beside our conscious freedom. But why this other 
"reign" ("whereas the Lord was your king/') 
which, as we shall now see, must contradict our 
freedom ? 

The essential idea of this " reign of law " is that 



AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OF MAN. 171 

from the beginning (if it allows of any beginning), 
and until the end of the world (if it allows of any 
end), all things exist and move according to certain 
"laws " or forces: that what seems irregular is only 
our ignorance of its " law ": that all moves with such 
precision and harmony of its innumerable parts, that 
any one who knew all these laws could calculate 
exactly what would happen ; as e. g. what the 
weather would be in Oakland, Md., upon the summit 
of the Alleghanies, a thousand years from this day ; 
or how many gallons of water would flow past that 
place that day in the Little Youghiogeny Eiver ; or 
how many wild pigeons would collect in the forest 
near by, at the same time, — calculate all this as 
correctly as they now do the eclipses. To this all 
except the infidels add, that when God made this 
great machine, He reserved the power of interfering 
in it with some few miracles for the spiritual good 
of man. 

Now it can be made plain that, even if there 
were no essential contradiction of this notion in an 
interfering Divine Will, if any other will interfered 
it would soon destroy the " reign of law." * The 
uniform action and the very existence of the machine 
(as a machine) would, in time, by mechanical neces- 
sity cease. Its vastness and power compared with 
the apparent insignificance of the interference, would 

* In one aspect even more so than the Divine, since of that it might 
be said, though erroneously, that the "interferences 5l were but a part 
of the vast mechanism as much provided for in the working as the 
rest; whereas the will of a wayward creature, not of accord by perfect 
knowledge and love with the Supreme Will,— only partly so even with 
those at all restored to it, — must certainly disturb the exact movement. 



172 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

not prevent this. The more prodigious its extent 
and complication, the more certain and terrific its 
ruin. The nicer its adjustments the more fatal the 
foreign substance intervening ; as a few grains of 
sand dropped between some of the polished surfaces 
of the Strasburg clock would in time destroy its 
movement. Nothing must be allowed to be or to 
move in all this mechanism of " Nature " except by 
the unviolated " reign of law." Every mote of dust 
has its place or changes its place ; every current of 
air rushes from the opening door of a house, as a part 
of this inexorable adjustment. If we could imagine 
some wilful being that knew (or cared) nothing of 
the coming mischief, approaching to look at this 
great machine, and then for any purpose or fancy 
disturbing its movements, we would know that the 
ruin of the whole construction was only a question 
of time.* 

Now this earth swarms with just such will-full 
creatures who displace motes and fluids and liquids 
and solid masses incessantly, without ever thinking 
that they are in the midst of such a delicate machine 
and are disturbing its normal action. The amount 
of interference by mankind in every moment of time 
with what would otherwise be the movement of the 
" laws of Nature " is beyond our calculation. If men 
have free will, this action of theirs is not reducible to 
the mechanism of any such "laws" known or un- 

* It would not have the chance of repairs and readjustment which per- 
tains to human machines; for it is the very theory of "the reign of 
law," even in the most religious view, that the Maker " interferes" 
only by miracles for spiritual purposes ; all else is unvarying " law " 
from beginning to end. 



AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OF MAN. 173 

known. It does not meet this argument at all to 
say, that in all which men do, they only avail them- 
selves of the laws which are still working invariably. 
The important fact is that processes and results are 
changed. Not only will clouds and rains be different 
from what would have been " Nature " if men had 
not felled so many forests and turned them into 
fields, but every time a child throws a handful of 
dust into the air, what would have otherwise been 
the poise and movement of all matter is changed 
and can never again be the same. In nothing do all 
the admirers of a mechanical Nature more exult than 
in this supposed perfection and unbroken march of 
quantities and forces. 

There is, of course, only one way to save the 
mechanism of law from this destructive argument, 
and that is to make what seems human free will a 
part of the machinery. No one now who believes 
in the true God likes to deny the freedom which He 
has given to man. Thus, in the book called " The 
Eeign of Law," we have one who is indignant and 
argumentative against the deniers of man's liberty, 
and who yet, because his favorite notion requires it, 
crowds the supposed " free will " into his remorseless 
machine, adjusts it by certain wheels and bearings of 
his imagining and to his own satisfaction, and that 
assures us with a gratified and gracious smile that, 
H when we pass from the phenomena of Matter to 
the phenomena of Mind, we do not pass from under 
the Eeign of Law. Here too facts do range them- 
selves in an observed order; here too there is a 



174 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

chain of cause and effect running throughout all 
events," &c. (E. of L. p. 274.) 

This is, in substance, saying that, while we think, 
(really we know,) that we are acting by our choice ; 
so that we stand or move, " do good or do evil," 
serve or disobey God as we will, in which case alone 
would He judge us ; this is only in seeming : really 
all our acts and feelings are links in "a chain of 
cause and effect " — parts of the resistless machine 
called "Eeign of Law." 

This is followed by a long dissertation upon 

" motives," &c, in that method of a certain school of 

theology, which has been humorously and vigorously 

described by a theological adversary as being in 

effect, — 

"You can and you can't: 
You shall and you shan't: 
You will and you won't: 
You'll be damned if you do, and you'll be damned if you don't." 

It does contain the admission that "among the 
motives that act upon the mind, Man has a selecting 
power. He can, as it were, stand out from among 
them, look down from above them, compare them 
among each other, and bring them to the test of 
conscience." If this means real free-will it is well. 
But then " the chain of causes and effects " disap- 
pears, and the " reign of law " over men's choices 
and acts, such as had been claimed, is abrogated. 
Yet, as the author still insists upon that notion 
which does not allow of real freedom, we must sup- 
pose he thinks this " selecting power " to be never 



AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OF MAN. 175 

really used, or to be itself controlled by some other 
force than his volition, or that, if it makes a " selec- 
tion, " that is ineffective and noways interrupts " the 
chain of causes and effects."* 

Observing this writer further as a representative 
of the others, and as illustrating the irresistible 
tendency of the notion in question, we notice that he 
seems to see in mankind, beyond their material 
bodies, nothing but " mind." He even carries the 
same notion into the idea of the Great God. Let 
any one reflect but a little how different this is from 
what the Glorious Absolute One tells us of Himself. 
He is, " I Am That I Am." He " is a Spirit," He 
" is Love," &c, &c. Nowhere does He call Himself 
" Mind," or anything equivalent to it. Yet this is 
the favorite and almost the only designation of God 
in the book before us. Sometimes, indeed, He is 
named as " Will."f Yet this author expresses 
astonishment that a criticj (very justly, but he says) 
"by some strange confusion of thought seems to 
regard with horror the idea of the Will being re- 
garded as part of the constitution of the mind." So 

* A man who was always controlled in his acts by motives in that 
sense would have no more real freedom than a railway train drawn by a 
locomotive. 

+ It is a weak and illusive way of dealing with great facts, to use 
abstract terms and in a sort personify them by capital initial letters. It 
has an air of being very profound, and carries the credulous confidence 
of many readers by an appeal to their vanity as being able to understand 
such high and impartial philosophy as would not wound the suscepti- 
bilities of an atheist, by naming God as a Person; but would delicately 
introduce Him as the abstraction " Mind " or "Will." This passion for 
abstract terms and their personification is one of the weaknesses and 
misleading tendencies of intellectual vanity in this age, and upon many 
questions. In none such is it so irrational as in entertaining it as a 
rational question, whether there be ." a personal God"; since He is rhe 
certain and absolute Person, and other personality only derived and re- 
lative as to Him.— See also Appendix F. 

X Dr. Ward, as quoted in Appendix to M Reign of Law,' 1 p. 417. 



176 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

then, in his view, even the Will of God is a part of 
" Mind." 

This is not a mere error of words, but a great 
spiritual misapprehension which misleads in all 
reasoning from it. Divine and perfect truth tells 
man little of his mind (i. e. the mere intellectual 
capacity), but much of his spirit ; his real person, of 
which the mind is but an organ or servant. The 
human will is the spirit of a man choosing or acting, 
with which he can escape from native degradation, 
become " the new man," love God and his fellow-man, 
and have eternal life; or, failing this, " perish. " It 
is his weakness and danger to think only with pride 
of his faculty of knowing (as the first man did with 
such vast mischief). To apply this " vain imagina- 
tion " to the Supreme One, and talk and think of 
Him who discloses Himself as Creator and King and 
Life of all, — Who pre-eminently judges and loves, and 
in the love and loving of Whom is our real glory 
and incomparable felicity — to talk and think of Him 
as " Mind," is even more to have " the foolish heart 
darkened" 

When one who is by birth and breeding and 
choice really a Christian, does this, he gratuitously 
puts himself so far forth into the intellectual darkness 
which the great Christian sage describes of the 
Pagan philosophers.* He cannot then have the 
spiritual wisdom that is necessary for one who is a 
teacher of others in these matters. With the writer 
in question there is also probably the unconscious 

* Ep. to the Romans i. 21. 



AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OP MAN. 177 

influence of a certain hard and cold theology very- 
much given to mere intellectual controversy. He 
disclaims this designation (of " Calvinist ") ; but 
while no doubt denying some of the formal state- 
ments of dogma which he supposes to be included in 
that term, he still shows plainly to an attentive 
reader the rigid and unspiritual temper of mind 
which the atmosphere of such religious training 
infuses into its subjects. 

The author's evident ignorance (or forgetfulness) 
that there is any such thing in Our Lord's Kingdom 
upon Earth, as authority to teach these greatest 
things, corresponds with the lack of u sweetness and 
light " of a more spiritual religious life. There is, 
indeed, in this age a general heedlessness about the 
authority of the pastors of the Church as the chief 
instructors in " all things that pertain unto life and 
godliness,"* especially as though this had no appli- 
cation to that most effective teaching which is by 
books and other reading. Yet even one who thought 
that the ordination of Christ's ministers was not at 
all to be accounted of as to books, might have some 
just thoughts of them as " ambassadors for God," and 
be glad to make allusion in his writing to that 
divine law and order for maintaining truth in reli- 
gion. On the contrary, this writer seems to hold in 
the spiritual polity what has been charged as an 
American idea in the social order, that " one man is 
as good as another and a great deal better." For we 
will not suppose that he thought being a hereditary 

*1 Peter i. 3.— In this I think are fairly included thoughts of God, and 
all opinions that affect our faith in His Word. 



178 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

legislator in one realm gave a man authority in the 
kingdom which " is not of this world." 

The very temper of our age, which retains the 
intellectual hardness and spiritual insensibility which 
prevailed among the intelligent of the eighteenth 
century, and adds to this an immense mechanical 
activity and insatiable money-getting, mixing 
these by general reading through all classes of 
people, is a portent of great danger. And when one 
of the most accepted champions of faith sees in God 
only "Mind," i. e. the same thing in kind, only much 
greater in extent, which in men reads and thinks, 
and writes books for others, and is admired for it, 
and controls other men by hereditary legislation and 
such means, then we need something powerful to 
counteract this process and progress of benumbing 
and extinguishing all that is spiritual. 

A man in an assured, comfortable and honorable 
station in life may be comparatively safe from such 
dangers as beset the most of those whom he 
addresses with his book. Certainly he can scarcely 
comprehend and sympathize with them in the 
wearing and degrading temptations to worldliness of 
their struggle for a comfortable life. But even he 
and all of us alike need everything to cultivate 
humility, and to soften our dull hearts to the emotion 
and action of a life of love to God. To persuade us 
that we are only body and mind, that is, matter and 
thought, is of the exact opposite tendency. It is 
unspiritual and selfish ; for intellectual selfishness is 
no more just and loving than that which is brutal. 



AS TOUCHING THE FREE WILL OF MAN. 179 

It is all of this present, this evil world. To continue 
this error yet farther, so as to have no higher idea 
even of the Divine Spirit than as a huge extension 
of the human mind, is to exclude ourselves from the 
most ennobling and purifying influence, the one 
which is necessary for real life, shutting off the 
glorious spiritual vision of God as the " Holy and 
Just and Good." 

Even if we were all great noblemen, living in 
ancestral palaces with wide domains, carefully fed 
upon good books and fenced off from the fierce 
jealousies of selfish life, until at a mature age we 
should begin to govern common men and write 
books to instruct them, that process would sooner or 
later make us dull and unloving in spirit, and unvo- 
ligious, not to say irreligious. But for what we are, 
almost all of us, with the common struggles and 
dangers of life, even in Christian lands, that will be 
a dreadful day when the narrow hardness and cold- 
ness of this mere intellectual notion of man and of 
God shall really prevail. He who does anything to 
oppose its progress and expel it from among men, is 
their friend. He who promotes it, however igno- 
rantly, is their enemy.* 

* It is a pleasure to see that the author of " The Reign of Law " does 
not, like so many with his advantages of fortune, waste his life in 
merely trying to enjoy this, but finds his pleasure in the attempt to be 
useful to others, however mistaken the undertaking before us may be. 



180 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OP LAW." 

CHAPTBK XL 

AS RELATED TO' THE WILL AND LOVE OF GOD. 

AN even greater aspect of this question is as it 
regards the true thought of God's "Will, as 
His Word teaches us and oar best reason obediently 
receives that Word. This true thought is, that the 
Will of God is the cause and purpose of all else that 
is. The speculations of men have taught otherwise." 
Even Christian reasoners have lost sight of this and 
devised other notions, then assuming and laboring to 
interpret the words of Holy Writ according to their 
reasonings. Yet none the less is this the plain and 
simple meaning of " God's Word written," in all its 
consistent substance and in most direct expression. 
The intellectual difficulty of this belief, so far as 
there is any, is in supposing that mere " arbitrary " 
will, as the ground of action or law, is unworthy 
even of a good man, much more, therefore, of God ; 
so that as we must find some ground of truth and right 
in a man's will, something which is outside of and 
above that mere will, to make it good, we must do 
the same as to God's Will. But this is false in two 
respects : it tries the action of the One Most High 
Creator by the conditions in which He has made the 
many creatures ; but still more, it discards the 
greatest thing which we know or can know of Him, 
viz., that He " is love." There is no such thing as 
" arbitrary will " rightly conceivable of Him. In 



AS RELATED TO THE WILL AND LOVE OF GOD. 181 

any such use "arbitrary " implies censure, as of one 
who is amenable to just principle and duty, yet acts 
without reference to them. We may speak of 
" arbitrary will " in a man (alas ! we have too much 
reason in fact to do so,) because he may be selfish, 
and so in action unmerciful, unjust, unloving, 
tyrannical. 

But of God it is not that His will is controlled by 
love, but that His will " is love," and all of goodness 
which that includes. It is not that He is so good 
that He will always obey eternal principles of 
truth, justice and kindness, but that there are such 
things as truth, justice and kindness simply by His 
loving Will, — His Love which wills and works 
eternally and absolutely. This, only this, and no 
less than this, is what we read in Holy Scripture : 
thus, " For of Him and through Him and to Him are 
all things : to w r hom be glory forever " [Eom. xi. 36}. 
" Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure 
they are and were created" [Eev. iv. 11]. 

A little human creature, who is as to the Glorious 
One as a mote of dust to our whole world, may call 
this a "selfish" idea of God. But none the less is it 
the truth, and such a man's censure a silly blasphemy. 
If any one is honestly perplexed by the thought that 
God has given us wills also which revolt against 
enforced submission to mere Will in Him, this 
should be relieved by the counterpart truth that our 
real life is in the law, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
Thy God with all thy heart," &c. Such devotion of 
the creature to the Creator in personal love, not only 
16 



182 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

removes any pain of absolute obedience, but makes 
it the highest pleasure and honor.* 

The true thought of God is also of One, not merely 
as we deny the notion of " gods many," but as we 
cease to divide Him, in our thoughts, into different 
organs, faculties, or " attributes. ,, f He makes crea- 
tures of parts; He Himself is the one absolute Unit, 
and we must think of His love, will and power as one 
action and person. So far from there being any 
rational question whether God be a person, He is the 
ideal, the only real and absolute Person. We are only 
partly so, by His will of creation " in His own image." 

As Will and Love and Work are thus all one with 
Him, we see that there is no past or future for Him, 
but one eternal present. The notion of time in 
which to effect something great, is necessary to us 
creatures, but has no sort of application to Him. So 
that the idea of His having set this great Cosmos in 
motion either sixty or six thousand centuries ago 
and left it to work by mechanical " forces," or " laws," 
is a mere invention of our insufficient intelligence, 
trying to describe what is Divine by human action. 
A much greater, and therefore more adequate and 
true conception would be, that God does all things 
now incessantly and directly. The danger will 
always be of having not too high, but too low ideas 
of Him ; not that our own thoughts will be more 
true than the words of His Book, but that they will 
degrade those words by reading them according to the 

*8ee Appendix G.— A Meditation upon the Eternity and Sole Self- 
Existence of God. 

tNone the less, even the more, we should entirely believe the august 
mystery of the Trinity. 



AS RELATED TO THE WILL AND LOYE OF GOD. 183 

inferior human nature. What those words plainly 
teach we have already seen in Chapters VI. and VII. 

The author of " The Eeign of Law," although 
blindfolded by that false notion, sometimes wanders 
very near to the true vision of the Glorious Imme- 
diate Presence of God in all things. Thus (p. 122) 
he quotes Sir John Herschel as saying : " It is but 
reasonable to regard the Force of Gravitation as the 
direct or indirect result of a Consciousness or a 
Will existing somewhere." He himself adds : "And 
even if we cannot certainly identify Force in all its 
forms with the direct energies of One Omnipresent 
and all-pervading Will, it is at least in the highest 
degree unphilosophical to assume the contrary ; to 
speak or to think as if the Force of Nature were 
either independent of or even separate from the 
Creator's power." 

In this he almost announces the simple truth 
which would dismiss all his illusion of a "reign of 
law," and dispense with all his labored arguments to 
maintain faith notwithstanding.* Yet, though he 
gropes up to the truth and seems to " feel after and 
find " it, so that you say, "At last he sees "; he does 
not see, and soon turns his back to wander among 
the tombs of false philosophies. Then you perceive 
that he is blindfolded by the vain imagination of a 
mechanical Universe ; and even when he confronts the 
unclouded sun, sees only his bandage. f 

* Though the phrase, "if we cannot certainly," &c, does betray a 
false and fatal prepossession, since it is not for us to " certainly 
identify " God, but by faith to behold Him in all things according to His 
Word and our best reason. 

tYet two pages after we have him speaking as of a certain truth 
about an infinite number of elementary forces, p. 125. 



184 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

In other such writers, too, we find glimpses of this 
truth as the result of their best thinking. Dr. 
McCosh says :* " The profoundest minds in our day 
and in every day, have been fond of regarding this 
force (the one of which all so-called forces are 
thought to be but different modes), not as something 
independent of God, but as the very power of God 
acting in all action, so that ' in Him we live and 
move and have our being/ "f Even Mr. Alfred 
"Wallace, one of the most advanced and most 
admired of living naturalists, in following up the 
reason of the thing, cannot resist this conclusion, 
that " the whole Universe is not merely dependent on, 
but actually is the Will of higher intelligence, or of 
one Supreme Intelligence. "J 

This even from one who professes no obedience to 
the Word of God ! Is it not then amazing that our 
defenders of the Faith (whether rightful or self-con- 
stituted), our Christian philosophers opposing the 
unspiritual and even atheistic consequences drawn 
from a " reign of law," should advance to this 
glorious vision of truth, which contains in itself the 
refutation of all those errors, regard it with admira- 
tion as the highest achievement of thought (never 
thinking that it is simply true religion as revealed 
to them in the only true religion) — and then retreat 
into the malarious marsh of a false notion, to con- 
tinue there a defensive and disastrous war for the 

* Christianity and Positivism, p. 15. 

t Yet in the very next page he says, "But with the Forces we have 
the Matter of the Universe, in which I believe the Forces reside," p. 16. 
X Natural Selection, p. 368. 



AS RELATED TO THE WILL AND LOVE OP GOD. 185 

truth and faith of God ! It is only another instance 
of the spiritual misguiding which the idea of " laws of 
Nature " works. Some of the " profoundest minds " 
have apprehended the great truth of God's incessant 
power in all, without such stultifying contradictions.* 

It will assist in establishing and confirming in our 
minds this truth, to trace it by its natural steps in 
reason, as any honest Christian with patience can do 
just as well as the philosophers. We will begin with 
noticing that all the recent studies in science have 
tended toward the opinion, that what have been 
heretofore called different " forces of Nature," as 
gravitation, heat, electricity, chemical affinity, &c, 
were " correlated/' passed into one another in cer- 
tain cases, and were really the same thing in different 
appearances; also that the amount of this one force 
was always the same. 

But what then is this "Force" which we talk 
about? What is it, for instance, when we see some- 
thing move and say that this could not be without 
some force applied ? If there be something present 
which is alive and has a will, we ascribe the motion 
to that; otherwise we say that the thing " seems to 
be alive," or " you would think it was alive." But 
we never think the force to be the matter we see, 
but something invisible acting within or upon it. 

And is this invisible force in each such instance a 
person who chooses to act — a created spirit with a 
will, like the soul of man ? Surely not ; for, to say 
nothing of other reasons, this motive power seems to 

* Des Cartes, Malebranche, Al Gazil, Augustine, St. Paul. 



186 THE RETGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

be not many such, nor even a few great forces, but 
one very great Will. And is this Will a great 
created Spirit, interposed by the Creator between 
Himself and all matter ? No ; we could not wisely 
think of God as having created and interposed 
between Himself and matter a force and will whose 
only purpose would be to move matter according to 
His will. The simple and evident thought would 
be that this one Will and Force was the Creator 
Himself. 

Let us retrace this enquiry by the clue of another 
simple illustration. If we see a huge railway train, 
which has b^en standing still upon the track, begin to 
move, what do we know to be the cause or .force of 
this movement ? Not the cars, or any part of them, 
not the locomotive wheels, for they were there before, 
and have no will to revolve now instead of standing 
still as before. Not the pistons, or cylinders, or 
valves, or levers, all for the same reason. But we 
are sure that all this movement came from a man 
(though where we stand we may not see him), who 
had a will that the train should move, and with a 
slight pressure of his hand set all the rest in motion; 
Thus we have an instinct of reason that all force is 
really in will, and that other things which seem to 
be causes and forces are only things moved them- 
selves by the real force, and are the successive links 
of effect and not of cause. 

But you may say, " No, it was not the man's will, 
bat the expansive power of steam. If that had not 
been present, all his contrivance and all his will 



AS RELATED TO THE WILL AND LOVE OF GOD. 187 

would not have moved this great weight a hair's 
breadth. This force of steam might even against his 
will burst its enclosures and destroy all around it, 
even this master man." Has it then a will too? 
No ; if a force at all, it is a blind and unthinking 
one; itself must be but a mere effect. An hour ago 
it did not exist ; only after the man had placed water 
where it is now, and kindled fire beneath it. And 
so steam came itself from the man's will. 

But in another aspect it is true that there was 
force besides the man's will. His will was a force 
contained within plain limits. By it he could, as he 
did purposely, first " raise " the steam with water 
and by fire, and then raise the lever to use this 
force for motion. But the achieving of this motion 
by his will is a very different kind from that simple 
will by which he walks, or with his hand merely 
raises the valve-lever. Of it we commonly say that 
" by contrivance he uses the forces of Nature to do 
his will." Even the first-mentioned simple power 
of will is his only as God has made and sustained 
his life, and within such range as He appoints to 
His creatures — great as regards the goodness of the 
Maker, but very small in comparison of that Maker's 
power of Will. The other is the use of force which 
in no sense is his — a use allowed by, made for him 
by, Him who really is All Power. 

These " forces of Nature " — this one Force really in 
various modes, which is not man's will — is it or not 
the will of some person ? From what has been 
already shown we cannot doubt it. Matter, even in 



188 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

the most subtle invisible form, and beyond all our 
senses, cannot be Force ; it is the object upon which 
Force acts. And when we get back of all the effects 
which seem each to impel the succeeding one, to 
what gives the real push, we know that it must be a 
person who chose to give an impulse, and did so. 
Shall we, as so many do, call this person " Nature " ? 
and if so, what will we really mean by it, or will we 
mean anything? 

Eather let the highest truth, that is, true religion, 
answer the question. " Are not two sparrows sold 
for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall on the 
ground without your Father" The ceaseless, imme- 
diate will of God is that Force of all movement and 
life, except the little part of it committed by Him to 
the wills of such persons as He creates. Of course 
this Divine Power is utterly unlike anything that 
man or any other creatures of God can do with their 
small wills and mere use of some little part of His 
great workings. 

But how do those who discourse of a "reign of 
law " treat this transcendent truth ? They shall 
speak for themselves.* " It is, indeed, the complete- 
ness of the analogy between our own works on such 
a scale and the works of the Creator on an infinitely 
large scale, which is the greatest mystery of all. 
Man is under constraint to adopt the principle of 
adjustment, because the Forces of Nature are ex- 
ternal and independent of his will. They may be 
managed, but they cannot be disobeyed. It is im- 

* Reign of Law, p. 125. 



AS BELATED TO THE WILL AND LOVE OP GOD. 189 

possible to suppose that they stand in the same rela- 
tion to the Will of the Supreme. Yet it seems as if 
He took the same method of dealing with them, 
never violating them, never breaking them, but 
always ruling them by what we call adjustment 
and contrivance. Nothing gives us such an idea of 
the immutability of Laws as this ; nor does anything 
give us such an idea of their pliability to use. How 
imperious they are, yet how submissive ! How they 
reign, yet how they serve ! " 

This is in substance saying that God is, in what 
He does in the material Universe, just a man " on an 
infinitely larger scale." The writer had said just 
before, " There is this difference, indeed, that in 
regard to our works we see that our knowledge of 
natural laws is very imperfect and our control of 
them is very feeble ; while in the machinery of 
Nature there is evidence of complete knowledge and 
of absolute control." That is, God uses the vast 
forces around Him, with a profitable ingenuity like 
ours when we convert them to our purposes in 
steam-engines and the like : only He knows all about 
them and avails Himself of them with much greater 
energy. 

This may not unlikely pass with inattentive 
readers for something wise and true. But it is 
amazing folly. The writer seems to get a glimpse 
of the absurdity, and to make a feeble protest 
against just censure of it, saying, "It is impossible 
to suppose that they stand in the same relation to 
the Will of the Supreme." Yet he begins and ends 



190 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

his song of worship to these " immutable " and 
" imperious " deities with that very supposition. 
" Impossible," indeed ! Could anything be more 
preposterous ? What he states as " the difference " 
between man's contrivances and adjustments, and 
God's " mighty acts" and "wonderful works," is 
only the mention of two incidents of this cuiignor- 
ance and weakness. The real difference is that 
what we use is a very little part of His action. Yet 
we are told that He, " by a complete analogy, takes 
the same method of dealing with " — His own Will 
and acts ! — " never violating, never breaking, but 
always ruling them ! " That is, He avails Himself 
of His own acts to do what He does ! He never 
" breaks " nor " violates," but always " rules " His 
own glorious Will, which is all love and truth and 
power ! " There is evidence" that God has complete 
knowledge and absolute control — of what He is all 
the time doing Himself! Truly, 

— "the force of folly could no farther go." 

Such irreligious absurdities show how " they walk 
in a vain shadow " who assume as a primary truth 
the pagan and unspiritual notion of " laws " and 
"forces " as anything else than the immediate will of 
the " Most High," so that they can even talk of them 
as " imperious " toward God. The more they reason 
about the Divine the less they really see of it ; and 
so the language and very conception of a religion of 
," gods many," the " soul of the world " of Plato, and 



AS RELATED TO THE WILL AND LOVE OF GOD. 191 

the " Nature " of Aristotle, displace the spiritual 
vision of Him in Whom " we live and move and 
have our being." 

For truth in this enquiry we return them to the 
contemplation of that transcendent Person. Nothing 
is true that does not accord with truth concerning 
Him. He is essentially One ; not made up of power, 
truth, love, and the like, but simply the One Eternal, 
All-including Life, Will, Power, Truth and Love. 
This all-powerful Love has a continual will that 
there shall be existence and life such as we behold, 
and are ourselves a part of it. To fancy that 
Almighty Will controlled by, or effecting its purposes 
by contriving and adjusting, something outside of 
itself, or limited in what it would do now by anything 
it has done in the past ; or to have any such concep- 
tion of His power as obscures to us the thought of 
His personal love, and substitutes for it at best a 
machine of " benevolent design," — to use the cold, 
thin and impotent phrase which all such reasoning 
substitutes for the mighty truth of God's love — is 
blindness to the vision of Him as He " declares " 
Himself to us in His Word. Therefore, the notion 
of " natural law " and its " reign " is false ; and the 
belief that all things are and move simply because 
He wishes them to at the time, must be true. 



192 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 



CHAPTER XII. 

ITS EFFECT UPON THE INTERPRETATION OF HOLY 
SCRIPTURE. 

NOR can this notion be held without a certain 
effect upon our apprehension of the Word of 
God. This of itself would make it a religious ques- 
tion. (See also supra, Chap. III). We have already- 
had a glimpse of this in our preliminary discussions, 
specially as to deciding it by " Natural Theology," 
(Chap. IV), and as to the comparative certainty of 
science, or a Word of God. (Chap. V). But now 
our enquiry is : " Supposing belief of a ' reign of 
law/ what must of necessity be our method of under- 
standing the Word of God, and specially of inter- 
preting the Holy Scriptures ?" 

As a matter of fact, * in proportion as this notion 
has prevailed in modern Christendom, it has been 
accompanied by a denial of literal fact to the holy 
history of the Gospel, and of the older Word of God, 
upon the ground that what is miraculous and 
supernatural cannot reasonably be believed. The 
argument for this from the premise of a " reign of 
law " is to my mind irresistible. The Divine truth in 
Christian faith has nevertheless overpowered that 
false conclusion in a great number who maintain this 
notion of " natural law," and are among the most 
successful in scientific research. But even with 

* See passim the History, Chap. VIII.-1X. 



INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 193 

them it has brought in a now method of apprehending 
the Word of God, by the consent of almost all 
Christian writers of this age to change the former 
accepted meaning of certain parts of Holy Scripture 
to accord with what " Science " is said to have 
proved. This is a very serious matter. No new 
method of understanding God's Word ought to be 
allowed without careful study of all its merits, and 
of its necessary or even probable results. The 
general relations of God's Word to man's science 
have been already set forth (Chap. Y). We will 
now consider the actual tendency and results so far 
of the prevailing notion. Some may see in this only 
a progress of truth. If so, it is good, religious, divine : 
an argument for the " reign of law." But to others 
it seems the confusion and discrediting of the most 
valuable truth. May God Himself show us which is 
right. 

Until quite lately these results have been confined 
to new interpretations of the history of Creation 
(Genesis I.) and a few other supernatural facts.* 
But there is already a further tendency and advan- 
cing results, the noting of which belongs here. We 
drift slowly perhaps, but steadily, toward more such 
changes. Some perhaps notice this movement, and 
secretly rejoice in it. Some are undisturbed, because 
they suppose we have seen the worst or all of the 
change ; otherwise they would be alarmed into pro- 
testing against and renouncing this method which 

* These new interpretations and some kindred questions will be best 
considered in Chap. XIII. following this. 

17 



194 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "TI1E KEIGN OF LAW." 

they have consented to so far. Eeal truth, however, 
will be best promoted by our all distinctly seeing and 
openly admitting what is on the way. 

Of late the men of science generally agree that 
they have proved — as plainly as their hundreds of 
thousands of years for building the crest of this globe, 
or millions for the present order of the Universe — 
that mankind inhabited the earth long before the 
period in which we Christians have always under- 
stood God's Word to tell us that man was first made. 
Now this if allowed to be true, makes one's faith 
somewhat dizzy. We may have but just, and after a 
long time, got over a like shock once received about 
the " days of creation.' 7 We may have been finally 
persuaded by our scientific fellow-Christians, clerical 
or lay, that we must in only just that instance 
admit that the meaning of God's Word was never 
understood until the present Geology and Astronomy 
appeared. 

But now conies another like demand, and not a 
word of refusal is heard from the Christian philo- 
sophers. They are either looking the other way, as 

unaware, or looking on in silent approval, or look- 
ing down with silent timidity. What are we all to 
do ? Not that a man may not in the most high and 
blessed sense of those words, " believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ," if man were created sixty thousand 
instead of six thousand years ago. But it does 
matter greatly, and it docs affect our faith generally 
in the Word of God, whether what has seemed its 
plain meaning for thousands of years in all that 



INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 195 

Divine Society which is its " witness and keeper," is 
to be changed with the changes of human science. 

Nor is this all. Joined with the new belief about 
the antiquity of our race, and, like it, received by the 
Christian men of science with a silence that betokens 
no good to firm convictions in religion, is one about 
the nature of the first man and the change to the 
present, as represented by the phrases of " stone age " 
and the like. It means that mankind began long 
before what Moses relates : filthy and stupid and 
brutish (if not mere brutes), hiding from the storms 
like bears and serpents in mouldy caves, digging the 
earth with their fingers in search of roots, or tearing 
raw flesh for their food ; that from this some of them 
ascended by slow steps of a thousand or ten 
thousand years each, to make tools with clumsy bits 
of stone ; that thence in the same progress they rose 
to have language and writing, to imagine a Person 
or persons far above them, and thus a religion ; that 
on from this in the present historical period an 
ingenious few became more and more intelligent, 
partly elevating the rest with them, until this culmi- 
nates in a " scientist " of the nineteenth century, 
who knows about " the Eeign of Law," and adores 
"Mind."* 

There is another account of the beginning of man 
which can be best stated in these sentences : " God 

*It is worthy of notice that this "discovery" appears now among 
those whose ancestors were naked savages centuries after those who 
believed in the Book of Genesis were an intelligent and orderly 
people, worshipping the One God with a sublime ritual, an<1 having in 
their hands, as His Word, this and other writings which have never 
since been surpassed in spiritual devotion. 



196 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

created man in His own image " [Gen. i. 27]. "And 
the Lord God took the man and put him in the 
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. . . . And 
out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast 
of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought 
them unto Adam to see what he would call them " 
[Gen. ii. 15, 19]. " What is man that Thou art 
mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest 
him ? For Thou hast made him a little lower than 
the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and 
honor "■ [Ps. viii. 4, 5]. "God hath made man up- 
right, but they have sought out many inventions " 
[Bccles. vii.] " Because that when they knew God, 
they glorified Him not as God." [Eom. i. 21.] 

This account and the new theory are plainly in- 
compatible. I say this simply, though we shall soon 
no doubt have some one adjusting Scripture and 
faith to this science. He who accepts the later 
will do so by abandoning the former in its old 
natural sense. And this is what the Science of our 
day is preparing for us all, and which our defenders 
of the faith, bound and blindfolded by their false . 
notion of a "reign of law," are powerless to resist. 
Judge it then by this tendency. 

I have not even yet referred to the further theory 
of some, that long before the brute man he had a 
progenitor in the brute ape ; and that indefinitely 
(not to say infinitely) farther back, all that now live 
were shapeless moners in slime, and even, before that 
all that now exists was only some warm vapor. It 
is true that some of the Christian naturalists argue 



INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRTPTURE. 197 

against this, (while some of them seem rather drawn 
to it). But their arguments are largely and literally 
ad hominem, appealing against the disgrace of such a 
genealogy. That is scarcely reason. The question 
is not much worth disputing about, if we are to 
surrender the literal Christian truth about Adam's 
innocence and fall. One cannot be sure that this 
fight is not made with an eye to a final compromise 
in that surrender. Let those who contemplate that 
be well advised that there are others whom they can 
never represent in that capitulation, nor afterwards 
persuade to march out of the fortress of a simple 
faith, under any of those guaranties. 

" But does not God also teach man by the Book of 
Nature ? Is not His voice thus in His works as 
we wisely study them?" Yes, in a manner and 
sense. All knowledge comes from Him, including 
what we, with the mind which He has made, get by 
noticing and studying the other things which He 
has made. But certainly, as shown before (see 
Chapter V.), different matters of knowledge may be 
of different importance and of different certainty. 
And are we always sure that what these men think 
they discover is the truth, and is what G-od teaches 
in His works? On the other hand, "we know that 
God spake by Moses " and that Our Lord is " the 
Word of God." When there seems a discrepancy 
between these and the supposed truth of God in 
Science, what may we most wisely do? Is this last 
so certainly true compared with anything which we 
have learned from the other, that we must always 



198 TOE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

adjust the meaning of Holy Writ to the Science of 
our times, no matter what violence that may do to 
its more evident meaning? 

This notion, already confuted in Chapter V. (which 
see), would appear to prevail with the Christian 
writers of our age. So it is well even here with 
some repetition to expose its folly. Of the two 
related factors, then, Holy Scripture is the variable, 
Science the constant. Can anything be more absurd 
than this according to Christian faith ? Even waiv- 
ing this superior certainty of a Word of God, and 
looking only at an evident and admitted fact, the 
Science is very incomplete and altogether in a state 
of transition. In this consists the interest of study 
and the excitement of discovery in all our Science. 
Could we hope to secure certain truth by adjusting 
one variable to another variable ? How much less 
by " reconciling" what is already complete and 
divinely certain, to supposed truth, the defects and 
mistakes of which the twentieth century may 
smile at. 

If any one 3ay that it is not the written Word of 
God which we correct, but our wrong apprehension 
of it, is not this really the same thing? What does 
the Almighty One mean in addressing us with words, 
except that we shall apprehend His meaning in 
them? It is, indeed, true of human speech in its 
very nature, that its meaning has a certain range of 
variation, accordingly as we may interpret it. But 
this uncertainty of language is comparative and 
within a very narrow range. It must also be at its 



INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 199 

least when God uses it to speak to men. It is as 
much His creation as are the stars. Words are 
certainly the vehicle of most direct approach of 
knowledge to the human mind.* Even Science 
testifies to this, in that it must use language to teach 
its results. 

Then any knowledge which comes by our observa- 
tions of, and reasonings upon, the other works of 
God, is, at least where it bears even most remotely 
upon the spiritual and Divine, not only cramped by 
our inferior intelligence, but also poisoned by the 
subtle mixture of our moral perversion, our spiritual 
11 error, ignorance, pride and prejudice. , ' That this 
is also in a measure true of our learning from Holy 
Scripture, only shows the more plainly how yet 
more uncertain is what we learn (or think we do) by 
a method in which truth passes much farther through 
the disturbing medium. 

Thus of two messages from God coming to our 
knowledge, that rather should govern and interpret 
the other which was later in time, more direct, and 
specially provided for our highest or spiritual life 
after that had suffered a great injury, as in the Fall 
of man. This may close some gaps in the first 
imparted knowledge through which man had ignor- 
antly strayed. It certainly meets him in his later 
and actual condition. Our Divine revelation, with 
its wonderful progress through four thousand years, 
was given us later than the establishment of those 

* Unless we except from this mere sensations of physical pleasure or 
pain. 



200 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

uniform movements of matter which we study as a 
"Book of Nature."* 

Then in the interpretation of a Word of G-od, we 
are not left each of us to his individual notions or 
accidental prejudice, or the sort of " authority " 
known in Science, which is only the often contra- 
dictory statements of irresponsible authors who 
chance to have studied and written upon these 
matters ; statements which have come to our notice 
by the mere intellectual fashion of our time and 
country, which may be as blind and arbitrary as 
that of dress. But God spoke this Word by " holy 
men of old," moved by His inspiration ; then by His 
Son in person and that Son's Apostles ; and then 
gave His Word written to a great society always to 
be continued, in which Our Lord and King dwells 
perpetually, and is now among all men by the Holy 
Ghost. With whatever differences of particulars all 
we Christians " believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church," we recognize through it a vast superiority 
of authoritative meaning in Holy Scripture compared 
with any "Book of Nature." 

For these and other like reasons (see Chapter V.) 
it is, therefore, against the Christian faith to allow 
that the plain, simple meaning of Holy Writ must 
be adjusted to the Science of our times, or to any part 
of it. This is not a mere question with our con- 

*It does not lessen the force of this that the knowledge through 
"Nature" is only now coming among men; or that it too has a slow 
progress of development. The truth around us was set before man first, 
when he was innocent and perfect himself. That (you say) has never 
varied. The Word of God to men is later, and is given to them in their 
subsequent and still existing condition. 



INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 201 

temporaries, of confuting German rationalists, or 
successfully exchanging sarcasms in our own lan- 
guage with Messrs. Tyndall and Darwin. The great 
truth must be vindicated, that no accumulation of 
the scientific research in all the ages, no great names 
of the past, not Plato, Bacon, or Newton, more than 
our living naturalists, have any authority against 
the plain meaning of " God's Word Written." It is 
true that in different ways we might find that we 
had been used to take some of the sacred words in a 
wrong sense, in some unimportant particulars, and 
that we should then gladly correct the error. But 
due reverence and anything like real faith in it as 
God's Word, should make us very careful in this. 
We should be on our guard against our own levity, 
love of novelty, or pride of discovery. Certainly we 
must not do this ever as a timid concession to the 
hostile criticism of unbelievers. 

Is it not sometimes this timidity which says that 
" Holy Scripture does not intend to teach Science " ? 
But, as shown before (see Chapter Y.), it does teach 
facts, i. e. things done, both natural and supernatural. 
It also always mentions them as done by a will, 
either God's or that of some such of His creatures as 
He has given the limited will possible for them. 
This is the absolute and most important truth. 
Outside of it lies for us a range -of possible discovery, 
the observation and study and application to our use 
in brief life upon earth, of the wonderful things He 
has made around us, and the wonderful usual order 
in which they live and move. This part of our 



202 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

knowledge, with its multitude of little details and its 
brief inferior importance, though like all else given 
by the love of God and best used to make us love 
Him, does not find place in His Word. It is left to, 
it constitutes, our science, with small actual accumu- 
lations so far, and, no doubt, considerable mistakes ; 
with great possibilities, which are also the measure 
of the actual deficiencies. However great it may 
seem to us, what an inconsiderable asteroid it really 
is, floating in the vast infinite of truth ! We ought 
in this discussion to compare it in all the particulars 
just mentioned with li the depth (and height) of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God." 

This science of ours, Holy Writ indeed does not 
teach. In this, among other things, those writings 
differ in a wonderful way from any other so-called 
"sacred books" of nations or sects. (Such things 
which are not divine are sure to make an ambitious 
display of what prevails as the " wisdom of men " at 
the time.) Nevertheless it does as we have already 
seen, relate facts both natural and supernatural. It 
is not of such importance to true faith to which of 
these classes any one such fact of what God has 
done belongs, even whether we may not have here- 
tofore by mistake referred it to the wrong class. In 
either case it is the direct will and act of God. But 
if we remove it in our thoughts from the super- 
natural to the natural upon grounds which suggest 
unbelief in all the supernatural, that is a great thing. 

With this thought to change the previous apparent 
and accepted meaning of any fact of Scripture ; to 



INTERPRETATION OP HOLY SCRIPTURE. 203 

treat these Divine wonders as we would some unex- 
plained wonder of common observation, as only 
waiting for the discovery of another " law " to be 
reduced to a part of the inexorable machinery of 
11 Nature "; to assume that we would gain something 
to truth by reducing the number of miracles, though 
we admit that for spiritual necessities truth must 
still submit to some of such violent anomalies, — all 
this has just that tendency to cause doubt of the 
Word of God. 

No: the only rational use of a AVord of God 
requires us to expect in it the supernatural, much of 
the supernatural : to look for the truth in such 
heretofore supposed meaning of its facts, rather than 
in any new meaning suggested by our new (or our 
old) science applied. The purpose of that Word is 
faith in God. Did any one ever believe the less for 
any miracle therein related, — or the more for a 
" natural " account of the same incident ? Is not the 
reverse of this true? The tendencj 7 of all new inter- 
pretation by our science is toward general distrust. 
The secret thought at once asks (even if there be no 
distinct consciousness of this,) " If this which seemed 
to be told as the direct act of God is not so, but a 
movement of the great machine of laws — why not 
as well the other miracle?" There is nothing in the 
nature of the new method or its results so far which 
gives assurance that it will leave the rest of God's 
Word or any of it to be understood as it was by the 
first Christians. 

By all these instances then (and others, which for 



204 THE EETGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

special reasons have been deferred to the next 
chapter), it appears that the now prevailing method 
of adjusting the meaning of Holy Writ to such 
scientific opinions as are generally (and .as fast as 
they are) received, is very dangerous to the percep- 
tion and reception of the highest truth. Does not 
this demand a pause in that movement, of all who 
love truth? It is the love of truth which is supposed 
and appealed to in all intelligent Christians for the 
movement. Some may have been fearing that their 
prejudice in behalf of religious faith would obstruct 
their admission of some other truth which " is of 
God." But may this not be rather their fear of the 
scornful reproaches of those, who, granting their 
devotion to physical facts wherever they seem to lead 
when pursued alone, do not love the greater light or 
come to it ; as He who is all truth itself says, " Lest 
their deeds should be reproved." 

But why are you not yet more afraid of hindering 
that greater truth which is faith in the Word of 
God? I also seem to hear His voice now from 
Heaven in the very words He spoke upon this earth, 
perhaps then as a prophecy of the foolish " wisdom " 
of this world which He now sees among men, : 
" Heaven and earth (the very objects of the supposed 
truth which you now prefer) shall pass away ; but 
My words shall not pass away." 



OUR PRESENT ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY. 205 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THIS ACTUAL INTERPRETATION BY OUR PRESENT ASTRO- 
NOMY AND GEOLOGY. 

WE are warned by this tendency and progress 
to question even what has been generally 
allowed in our day, to go back and examine anew what 
our present Geology and Astronomy are supposed to 
say of the history of Creation, as given in the Word of 
God. This is in substance, that' this world was in a 
process of formation in layers of rock for many 
thousands of years before man existed ; that the 
stars moved in their orbits, and this globe as one of 
them, for ages hundreds-fold of all our history, 
beginning, if they had any real beginning, as con- 
densing vapors. This is said to be certain truth, so 
that the Holy Scriptures must agree with it, if they 
are true. 

Now this contradicts what until our time has been 
always supposed to be plainly told in the beginning 
of our Holy Scriptures : viz. that all other Creation 
took place within five days before that of man. 
What then ought Christian believers to do ? Some 
(but not those most versed in natural science, or 
any whom it is the intellectual fashion to admire,) 
say that this only proves science to be from the 
Evil One, and that Christians ought to reject and 
abhor it. Others who are generally looked up to as 
being the best informed and most liberal in thought, 
18 



206 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE EEIGN OF LAW." 

say that the science is certainly true ; and that as all 
truth is consistent, and as what God says in His 
Word must agree with what He says in His works, 
therefore we must, in order to " save faith," find in 
the Word some meaning agreeing with this science. 
Others yet are perplexed and distressed between 
these two parties, not wishing to reject any truth, 
or to be the ignorant enemies of real faith, which 
the friends of science say the first mentioned class 
are; yet having an instinctive fear that faith has 
more to dread in the other direction. 

Perhaps there is not yet enough known for a final 
judgment of the-question. Pending this, and when, 
ever such judgment is to be made, the following 
principles should be observed.* 1. No conclusions 
from other research and study can be as certainly 
true as the actual meaning of God's Word. 2. The 
ill results of a mistaken opinion about the earth's 
construction, would be vastly less than those of losing 
faith in God. 3. Holy Scripture is complete in itself; 
science immeasurably incomplete. 4. The supposed 
scientific proofs after all rest upon assumptions, 
which, however plausible, are not certain, as e. g. 
that rocks were aiwaj^s formed, and vegetable and 
animal life passed at the same rate of time as like 
things occur now, or that light travels from the 
fixed stars at the same rate of speed as we measure 
it in our solar system, or that the most remote star 
was not created with light from it already reaching 

*I make no apology here or elsewhere for casual repetition of things 
which need "line upon line " in our day. 



OUR PRESENT ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY. 207 

the earth.* Who knows this ? Could one of us have 
been alive " when the earth was without form, and 
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep," 
would he not have been " scientifically certain " that 
there would never " be light," nor a " round world, 
and they that dwell therein " ? 

5. It is possible that our previous idea of what 
God's Word did say of these things was our mistake, 
to be corrected, when discovered, with the same 
grateful and ready reverence as makes us prefer its 
actual meaning to any opinion. And yet 6. it is 
possible that we may yet find that God chose to do 
all that work of Creation in twenty-four, or in 
one hundred and twenty hours of our present time, 
which it is absurd to doubt that He could do, while 
it is not possible that His Word is not truth. 

Finally, it needs but a little reflection to see that if a 
written " Word of God " is to be construed without 
regard to its apparent meaning by something outside 
of itself, the real authority is in this " Supreme 
Court " of construction, whatever it may be. You 
may put any u constitution " or instrument in 
writing in what words you please, and if you concede 
that these words are to mean whatever I say they 
do, I then am the " constitution." No matter where 

* Indeed it is far more rational to think that the Eternal Lord made in 
a moment of time all this Nature, with its suggestion to the merely 
worldly mind of long processes of creation, meaning this as one of those 
mysteries of spiritual discipline which we find everywhere else, and 
which are greater than all matter — thus trying and training our faith in 
Him, than that He arranged in His word such apparent contradictions of 
the actual Creation as must perplex our faith. There is really no firm 
ground short of this as far back as the most extravagant theory of 
" evolution." Are we to believe that on the third day the seed was 
first made and grew, or the full-grown tree created ; on the fifth day, the 
egg with its subsequent growth, or the full-grown bird ? 



208 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

this infallibility of construction resides; whether in 
one man over all others, or each man for himself in 
his private judgment, or in "public opinion," or in 
that uncertain and irresponsible collection of the 
opinions of some famous men which is called science; 
this which tells us what the words are to mean, and 
not the very words, is what we shall then obey.* 

So the very application of this method to the 
Divine story of Creation 

— "must give us pause." 

It is not .too late for every one who believes that the 
Holy Bible is the Word of God to mankind, to 
renounce any method of construing it which tends of 
necessity to extinguish its authority and blessing as 
such. Any great name which may be cited in favor 
of the false principle is then only a great misfortune. 
Therefore I must not hesitate to make protest even 
against Bishop Butler, when he subjects Holy Writ 
in the same way to " Natural .Religion " (which is 
only a name for some of our fallible reasonings), 
saying : " Indeed, if in Eevelation there be found 
any passages, the seeming meaning of which is con- 
trary to Natural Keligion, we may most certainly 
conclude such seeming meaning not to be the real 
• one." 

Doubtless this great writer felt sure that there 

* This great subject is not without its difficulties in several directions. 
All men read God's Word in some measure with prepossessions of 
education and authority. And rightly so. Still it has its oivn sense and 
force. We must endeavor that the authority which influences us he 
wise, responsible, devout; and as being that which the *' Word" itself 
recognizes as "the pillar and ground of the truth." 



OUR PRESENT ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY. 209 

could be no such occasion for changing the apparent 
meaning of Scripture as always received in the 
Church. But if with his usual wise caution he had 
reflected that " Natural Theology " has no fixed 
standard and no authority : is for each man what he 
may think according to his prejudices or moral per- 
versions ; that as far as the phrase represents any 
truth, we may best get that from Holy Scripture 
itself; he would not have given his authority to this 
false principle. Steady, obedient, valiant faith in the 
Word of God will not be looking for these new 
reasonings. Weak doubt will only grow more timid, 
and perverse unbelief more obstinate for such sugges- 
tions. It is rash and foolish to say that he who dis- 
believes your science because he believes that it con- 
tradicts the Word of God, is an ignorant bigot, 
rather than he who doubts or misconstrues that 
Word because he believes the science. Of the two, 
probably the latter is " wise " only in his own con- 
ceit, and " the fool " in fact. 

Another point of view from which to examine the 
same question is as to the different provinces of reli- 
gious and scientific knowledge. In that division 
surely Creation and Providence lie in the domain of 
Religion ; so thought the Christian men of science 
of an earlier time, from Copernicus to Newton. But 
it is just there that science now assumes dominion 
and launches its edicts ; in that of Providence by the 
very notion of a "reign of law "; in that of Creation 
by its scientific " cosmogonies.''* Our philosophic 

* Their only resemblance to the Divine history is that the theories are 
14 without form and void" and " darkness is upon the face of the deep." 



210 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Christians do make some resistance in the region of 
Providence and contend for faith and prayer, though 
quite inefficiently on account of their fatal conces- 
sion of" laws of Nature." 

But upon the cosmogony they seem as if "there 
was no breath left in them." And what is the 
cosmogony in plain, honest, Christian English? It 
is the Creation of " all things visible." The Book of 
God begins with it. That event and that history of 
it are often mentioned in other parts of Holy Scrip- 
ture, even by Our Lord Himself. There is nothing 
more Divinely sublime in all the Book. To my best 
reason it seems surpassed by nothing else as a matter 
of revelation, that God Our Heavenly Father would 
in His love tell us how the Universe we live in and 
behold began, as He alone could tell it. 

Applying again a true principle, we should say 
rather that, since any loss of faith in God and His 
Word is far worse for our or any age, than to check 
the advance of human science, it is the wisest love of 
truth to distrust and decline the scientific conclusions 
wherever they ask us to change the apparent, simple 
meaning of that Word. Let us recall certain words 
which we might even expect our own sober reason 
to utter in warning ; but which, coming from God 
above, are plainly His reproof of that intellectual 
folly of our age : " Where wast thou when I laid the 
foundations of the earth?" &c. [Job xxxviii. 4-7.]* 

There seems to be in many minds a thought, per- 

* The eager credulity of some of our Christian scholars in all the asser- 
tions and inferences of geologists, following their crudities and changes 
with such wresting and adjusting of the Divine words as may make an 
idem sonans, is ludicrous and pitiable. 



OUR PRESENT ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY. 211 

haps never yet set forth in words, which influences 
their judgment of this question. For this reason, 
and also in anticipation that it may be given in reply 
to this argument, it needs notice now. It is that 
there is something in the accumulated knowledge of 
natural processes, and generalizing of them, and per- 
haps besides in the great number of ingenious machines 
and the vast amount of reading and of readers which 
distinguishes the nineteenth century from any other 
age, that it must make new rules and principles for 
itself; so that what was wise and well enough for 
all former generations would not be so now ; that 
we have outgrown all their garments both in dimen- 
sions and fashion. 

With all just allowance for what has been gained 
in the above-mentioned respects, the possible, the 
probable consequences of such an intoxicating folly 
as I describe, in destroying for us all, what certainly 
always is of value to men, the wisdom of experience, 
and that given from heaven long ago to the whole 
race, are truly terrible. Certainly natural sciences, 
machines and newspapers do not make what was 
spiritually true for mankind in the first century any 
less so in the nineteenth. Fortunately there is a great 
beacon of positive truth fixed in the midst of the 
ages, which does not vary with the supposed dis- 
coveries of men either by increase or diminution. 
But if we subject this also to change by new inter- 
pretation of its plain words ; or if we answer its 
mighty condemnation of some of our false notions 
which tend to obscure the truth of God, by silence 
about what it would mention if true — answer this by 



212 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

saying that only now are mankind intelligent enough 
to comprehend the new truth (e. g. of a " reign of 
law ") ; that this is why the " modern thought " is 
not recognized in Holy Scripture, then the mischief 
is without a remedy. 

" There is more hope for a fool than for a genera- 
tion thus ' wise in its own conceit V Let us always 
remember that the Word of God began to come to 
man in the early ages of the world, when the purest 
traditions of the primitive and innocent knowledge 
of Him remained least corrupted by the increasing 
false religion and wicked living. Had there been 
any such divine traditions of " laws " and " forces of 
Nature/' we should find traces of them now in that 
written Word. Were that notion such a necessary 
one in the true contemplation of the works of God 
as it is now commonly assumed to be, we should find 
it in the thoughts of such wise, great-souled and 
deep-thinking men as Moses and Job. 

Then these holy writings continue increasing with 
a wonderful order and history of development until 
a "fulness of time " comes, when they are completed 
with circumstances, and with express words too, 
which assure us that at last we have all that God will 
say most distinctly to man in this world. Only 
reverent and grateful obedience are now left to us. 
For any of these later generations to fancy that it 
has achieved some knowledge beyond this in religion, 
or in matters any way bearing upon religion, is mere 
folly. The very utmost it can do in the highest 
knowledge, and more than it will do in fact at the 
best, is to learn and obey the New Testament. 



THE PERSECUTION OF GALILEO. 213 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PERSECUTION OF GALILEO J AND, IS THE NOTION OF 

A "REIGN OF LAW" NECESSARY TO SCIENTIFIC 

INVESTIGATION ? 

THE religious opposition 300 years ago to the 
Copernican astronomy, and especially the 
prosecution and retraction of Galileo, are always now 
brought forward as conclusive proof that the Word 
of God must never be cited against a supposed 
demonstration of u science." But the cases are not 
parallel. The words about the " rising" and "set- 
ting " of the sun have not been altered in our Bibles 
since the sixteenth century, nor does any one ever 
try to " reconcile " them with science then condemned 
as heretical, but which all Christians now receive 
for truth. We have not changed our familiar lan- 
guage about the same things. Children and 
astronomers alike describe the same phenomena in 
the same way as they did before this, and as the 
Holy Scriptures did and do. 

That was also really a contest between two 
scientific parties, and not merely as to whether we 
could believe the Divine Word unless as construed 
by human science. The old or Ptolemaic party 
resisted the new or Copernican by every argument 
and means they could find. They appealed to the 
appearance of the sun every day traversing the sky r 
and to the word of Holy Scripture expressing the 



214 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

same. It was as if some one who now ignorantly 
believes that account of the solar system were to 
argue with you that it must be true, since you can- 
not help saying always that the sun rises and sets. 
The argument against Galileo had indeed more 
effect, because it appealed then in behalf of a 
previous opinion to the wise aversion of Christian 
believers to adjusting God's Word to men's science. 
This even if you call it a prejudice is more akin to 
truth than the self-sufficient levity which loves 
change for its own sake. All reverence and faith 
involve some pre-judgment. When this is employed 
upon true religion, candor and truth are also of the 
company, and any errors of opinion at first main- 
tained are not seriously mischievous and soon dis- 
appear. 

It was so in that controversy. We are all Coper- 
nicans now, but this has not changed the interpreta- 
tion of a single word of Holy Writ, or the substance 
of its truth to us by the minutest shade, nor at all 
weakened men's faith in it as all Divine. Will any 
one who understands the facts seriously maintain 
that the dispute about Galileo is to be compared for 
its influence upon the religion of the people, with the 
great ferment in all minds over geology, " biology," 
and the " reign of law," the pending debate before 
all people about what belief and reverence are due 
to the historical Christian faith ?* 

*The decree of the Roman Inquisition in that case begins thus : " The 
proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, is 
absurd, jyhilosophically false, and heretical, " etc. We are no way res- 
ponsible for the acts of the Roman inquisition, least of all committed to 
any Papal approval or infallibility. It is agreed, however, that a 
religious opposition to the Copernican astronomy was made throughout 
Christendom, upon the same mistaken grounds. 



THE PERSECUTION OF GALILEO. 215 

But this is not the only matter of difference. The 
religious opposition to the Copernicans was not 
because they denied things supernatural. The 
theory of motion of earth or sun lay altogether 
within the natural. Whichever was true it described 
the usual order, and had no more to do with spiritual 
faith than the contest between undulatory and 
atomic theories of light. No suggestion was made 
in behalf of the new knowledge, that in consequence 
of it men could not believe the miraculous things 
which are told in Holy Scripture. The greatest 
philosophers of that age were indeed all of them 
devout believers of the Gospel, who had not only no 
wish, but no thought or fear to impair its authority. 
We may challenge the citation of any sentence of 
theirs to the effect that God's Word is to be construed 
and understood anew by the new science : that 
Christian men are to labor anxiously to " reconcile " 
the old and Divine to the new and human, so as to 
make it rational and possible to believe in God. 
The question with them was the reverse of this ; 
their concern was to make sure that God's Word did 
not make their science incredible by contradicting it. 

But what all the scientific Christian men are now 
busy with, is to make an alarmed and all but des- 
pairing effort to " bridge over the chasm between 
Christian belief and modern thought/' * while the 
other men of science tell them that they are too late, 
that they must make their choice between the two. 
They add with a sort of lofty melancholy — and 

* Chriatlieb. 



216 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

contempt, that while Christian faith is a fine thing 
for those who are ignorant enough to keep it, it is 
henceforth impossible for a thoughtful man. Thus 
the whole case is changed. The fact that religious 
feeling three centuries ago wag engaged on the side 
of the Ptolemaic astronomy against the Copernican, 
and that we all now see that this was wrong, does 
not prove, nor in the remotest degree go to prove, 
that we ought to change the apparent and heretofore 
accepted meaning of Holy Scripture, on account of 
the science of our times. To surrender the old 
prejudice then, would have been right. To yield 
the false principle now put forth, is wrong. 

He w r ho will consider profoundly, and clearly set 
forth the wide difference between that controversy 
of the sixteenth century and this of the nineteenth, 
w T ill do a great service to Christendom. But without 
that, those who are perplexed by the reasonings in 
question, and still more disheartened by the readiness 
of many Christian writers to make the fatal conces- 
sion, while no voice seems to dare make remonstrance, 
may well take heart again. Let them say firmly : 
"We cannot yield this (whatever you makers of 
discourses and books may choose to do,) without 
losing some of our old reverence and trust for the 
"Word of God. And what was said three hundred 
years ago of its meaning about sunrise, or what was 
done to Galileo in 1632, has no force to compel such 
a dreadful concession from us." 

If it be insisted that science needs this idea of the 
"reign of law " for its further progress, let us candidly 



THE PERSECUTION OF GALILEO. 217 

consider what force this should have. It is true, 
that the notion of " laws of Nature " and its various 
expressions, now runs through scientific language 
aud even popular use. For this last reason it has 
become almost impossible to make one's self under- 
stood in any discussion without using those terms. 
But if the essential idea be false, that is only another 
instance of how dangerous a falsehood it is, and of 
the urgent necessity of correcting it. To decide 
that it was true merely because it appears so much 
in our current language, would be, after all that has 
been shown in disproof, very irrational. 

However, it is another argument in behalf of the 
"reign of law," and deserves an answer, if it be 
alleged that this theory being dismissed, the progress 
of scientific investigation would cease. 

Now as far as concerns the term "law," some of 
the chief discoverers in science always protested that 
in speaking of " laws of Nature," they meant only 
" general facts," and that this conception was suffi- 
cient for their researches. Others of them have gone 
yet further, expressing regret that the term had 
gained such vogue, and apprehensions of its irre- 
ligious tendency if not always fully explained in 
their sense. If these could persist and could succeed 
in scientific pursuits without the idea objected to, # 
why might not all others now and hereafter ? 

But some one may say that " even these must of 
necessity have realty, if unconsciously, maintained 

*But would they not have done better yet to discard the needless and 
even misleading phraseology ? 

19 



218 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT U THE REIGN OF LAW." 

in their thoughts (though from some prejudices or 
mistaken alarm about its bearing upon religion they 
disclaimed it,) the idea of a ' reign of law '; of an 
unbroken and irrefragable chain of all causes and 
effects, from the beginning of the present order (if 
it ever had a beginning,) an actual force and 
mechanism including all the ' Cosmos ' and exclu- 
ding any interfering will, only upon the certainty of 
which ' law ' could they proceed to extend the 
knowledge of mankind by observing more phenomena, 
making experiments and discovering new ' laws/ 
really old as the universe, but new to the delighted 
vision of investigating man." 

Now this may be the form in which some minds 
still adhere to the notion which we have already 
so fully tried by the Word of God and our best 
reason. And as so stated it is a mere begging of the 
question. For what right have any to assume, 
without specific reasons given, that Newton must 
have been supremely governed in all his discoveries 
by a belief which he disclaims? But allowing for a 
prepossession to this effect, let us confront it with the 
following facts and reasons. 

1st. It is certain that a considerable part of science 
was gained without the theory of a "reign of law." 
Take for an instance of this the great period of dis- 
covery from Copernicus to Newton. Indeed, the 
theory is rather claimed as itself one of the last and 
greatest achievements of science.* If it be the 
architrave of that edifice, it cannot be the founda- 

* G. C. Lewes, Aristotle, &c. 



THE PERSECUTION OF GALILEO. 219 

tion stone. Why should I insist upon it against the 
express denials of men of such thought and truth, that 
this notion was with them the unconscious instinct of 
the investigating mind, without which it could not love 
and achieve knowledge ? It has been already in these 
pages, upon other and sufficient grounds, shown to 
be a false notion. It is a monstrous thought then 
that truth can be only sought and gained by man 
upon the instinct of a false notion. Why, indeed, 
may he not seek out the works of God in all of true 
science while believing them to be simply and imme- 
diately the works of God ? Because he cannot then 
have any thought of them as in a usual order and 
almost invariable succession ? This misapprehension 
has been already exposed. 

But let us bring it to trial by a fact. I, for instance, 
do not believe in a "reign of law." But I do believe 
that God causes all existence, motion and life in every 
successive instant by His loving will ; that by that 
loving will He does this in an order, in ten thousand 
times ten thousand curious relations, which I can see 
and investigate ; that so by His love we may have 
forethought and enjoy the ingenuity of discovery ; 
increase our pleasures, relieve our pains and cares, 
and those of our fellow-men ; be patient and hopeful, 
and grow in wondering adoration of Him. Why, then, 
might I not, if other things favored, devote myself 
with patient and hopeful ardor, going on from the 
present point of science, like Mr. Tyndall, to a further 
knowledge of light, or of birds, like a Duke of Argyll? 
I have every rational and innocent stimulus which 
they have in the love of knowledge and the emulation 



220 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

of a glorious history. My security that the Cosmos, 
so far explored, extends far into the yet unknown, 
is at least as great in my faith of a gracious Keign 
of God, as their sin the notion of a " reign of law." 
But we should do injustice to the supreme and 
transcendent truth to subject it to this condition. 
It would be folly to surrender that truth if, and 
because, we could not see how, in accord with it, 
human science could advance. At the most this 
would only prove that man's thought and language 
were so imperfect that they could no longer be 
employed in the direction of scientific research, with- 
out a false notion which would degrade our souls 
much more than any knowledge of animals or of 
plants could ennoble them. It might be then that 
we could not any longer increase our store of such 
facts or widen our view over them with further 
generalizations, unless we darkened our spiritual 
vision of the One Only and True. If the spokesmen 
of science can show these to be the alternatives, 
then the choice will soon be made by the lovers of 
real truth. For themselves and for all their brother- 
men (including those who would deride them for it), 
they would say, Let us never have another i€ dis- 
covery "; let us even, if that were possible and neces- 
sary, go back to know no more of all this than did 
Abraham or Job, St. John or St. Paul, rather than in 
the least dim the glorious vision of God in His 
Word, His Church, and " the sure and certain hope " 
of another life near at hand, when we are to live in 
His presence and know all that can delight and 
exalt the soul of man. 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 221 



CHAPTEE XV. 

THE QUESTION BETWEEN THESE TWO IDEAS TRIED BY 
THEIR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 

IF we could even suppose that the result of our 
investigation so far is only to make it doubtful 
which of the two is the true idea, or to leave it at 
last a matter of consequences and expediency which 
to choose, there still remains that great question of 
probable truth, Which of them is the more for the 
welfare of mankind, and will best promote the good- 
ness of God to man ? This enquiry will certainly 
show whether our main question may be dismissed 
as not of practical importance. It is true enough 
that, as Bacon says, the pursuit of " final causes," 
that is, conjectures why things are as they are, is 
rather misleading in the investigation of physical 
facts. But in this higher question of the love of God 
in all His works, to omit these great spiritual facts 
would be feebleness and folly itself. As we know 
that God is love, more certainly than we know the 
magnitude and motion of our earth, so we know that 
no belief is true which does not accord with that 
love. Therefore, as between the two theories of the 
Universe now before us, that is the true one to hold 
which best promotes the spiritual good of mankind 
as God declares it in His Gospel. 



222 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT u THE REIGN OF LAW." 

What a man needs most to avoid and to oppose 
within himself is self-conceit, selfishness, worldliness 
and blindness to spiritual and Divine things. What 
he needs most to acquire and increase is humility, 
penitence, self-denial, faith in God, and obedient love 
of Him " with all the heart " and unselfish love to 
his fellow-men. Of the two it is the easy thing and 
suits the self-indulgent and unspiritual temper, to 
believe that everything moves around us in mechan- 
ical order, and so to be prudent and industrious 
(and investigating?) for ourselves, and exact in our 
judgment of others who, from ignorance or negli- 
gence, " violate the laws of Nature." But it needs 
every lofty motive, and every frequent reminder of 
our weakness, and the constant vision of Divine 
things by faith, and spiritual grace and salvation 
given, to keep one a good Christian. So God, in His 
Holy Word and Church, reminds us continually that 
this self-abasement and unlimited loving faith in Him 
are the real necessities and the glory of our life'. He 
promotes humility and faith among men, not only 
by direct precepts, but by providing them with all 
" means of grace." Does He not bestow the other 
blessings of life and all its true knowledge with the 
same purpose and effect? Is it not best for us to 
receive them so ? 

The man who sees the immediate act of God in all 
things, as compared with one who has the mechanical 
idea of Providence, is reminded of Him by every 
innocent desire. That desire becomes at once a 
loving prayer, which employs the words of an ador- 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 223 

ing poet of old, " Thou art my God." This worship 
does not need the process of 

"looking through Nature up to Nature's God," 

which sounds so well in the modern poet's verse, but 
which is in method so remote, and in the practice of 
those who talk about it so infrequent. He need 
look through nothing. " He hath set God always 
before him" The precepts and the promises about 
prayer in Holy Writ are in natural accord with his 
usual thoughts, and do not need to be emptied of all 
their Divine warmth and color in adjustment to a 
"reign of law." This gives him peace, joy and hope 
that are indescribable. Yet the same sense of imme- 
diate and incessant dependence upon Him who is 
"All in All," teaches the deepest humility. It pro- 
claims the greatness of God as nothing else can. No 
dim mist of " Nature " obscures, or, as rather is its 
tendency, quite shuts off the glorious vision. The 
infinite multitude and minuteness of His doings, so 
far from suggesting to this man that it is not the 
Good One in person who does all, only makes it the 
plainer to him that it is He " with Whom we have 
to do " directly in all. 

But even more does it disclose His glorious pres- 
ence in that which is, if we may without irreverence 
so express ourselves, God more essentially than any- 
thing else — His love. There is a reality and warmth 
and power, (which must be greatly lessened to our 
apprehension by any agents or mechanism inter- 
posed,) in acts of grace all alike — little and great, 



224 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

natural or supernatural, bodily or spiritual — done in 
person. You may to your mind correctly argue and 
unanswerably demonstrate that this should not be 
my thought; but nevertheless it will be so. You 
may "prove" that the pleasant food which I now 
enjoy (and for which, perhaps, when I saw no 
natural means of getting my daily bread, I earnestly 
prayed), would come to me as much by the love of 
God if it were the result of a vast and inconceivably 
complicated set of forces, put in motion six thousand 
years ago, to give to each of millions of millions of 
creatures its thousands of supplies, as if He had 
attended in person to my recent needs and cries; but 
I shall not believe it. 

I cannot then, when I adore Him, take up His 
own words and say, " Thou openest Thy hand and 
fillest all things living with plenteousness." 'No ; a 
mechanical provision for my wants, by a " reign of 
law," is not the same thing as Divine " loving-kind- 
ness and tender mercy," and my feeling about this 
is a more direct apprehension of the truth than your 
reasoning. That notion of Divine Providence 
through " laws of Nature," casts a chilly shade of 
doubt and unreality over all those affecting and 
inspiring sayings of God's Word about His hearing 
the cries and supplying the wants of each one that 
calls upon Him. It is thus not only untrue, but the 
most mischievous untruth, as it defeats the very 
purpose of God's love, in so revealing His love and 
grace as to make us humble and believing and un- 
worldly ; steadfast and happy in spite of any cares or 
extremities, and full of grateful love to Him. 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 225 

In truth, the love of God is the great solution of 
all these questions. The why of all things is thus 
absolutely known to us. Final causes are not barren 
puzzles in such investigations as ours. There is one 
great and certain purpose in all that is: a most 
glorious and magnificent Person does it all in love, 
which includes the fact that all the creatures which 
He has made sensitive should have enjoyment, and 
all those in His own image in the capacity of loving, 
should have their greatest enjoyment in that, the 
greatest exercise of it being toward Him. So, as was 
pointed out early in this investigation, to attempt it 
with the exclusion of this greatest fact, as mislead- 
ing from the " dry light "* of pure reason, is a search 
for truth upon condition of avoiding truth. Cold 
reasoning is in this, false reasoning. 

We may, by our artificial media, separate the 
heating and illuminating rays of the sun. But no 
such process is possible for the light of the Sun 
Eternal. It is the same one indivisible emanation, 
of which there can be no analysis, which gives us 
our life, shows us truth, makes us happy now, and 
restores and augments our lost heavenly future. 
Only in that light may we see light on this great 
question. The love of God alone accounts for His 
doing, as He " alone doeth great wonders," as well of 
the usual order we call " Nature," as of miracles. 
It alone accounts for His revealing them- to us. It 
alone is the method and form of all. It is the 
supreme, the everlasting, the sole purpose of it all. 

* Such a lumen siccum is ignis fatuus. 



226 THE BEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

To investigate the general truths of " Nature " and 
Providence, then, upon the method of excluding the 
consideration of the love of God as irrelevant and a 
matter not of truth but of sentiment, is as if one 
should begin the study of astronomy by excluding 
every fact about the stars. This is why all philosophy 
when it has handled these matters, has been so 
feeble, so confused, and so barren of results.* 

Some of the Christian writers do indeed expatiate 
upon what they call " evidences of benevolent 
design." But this is very weak and cold, and so 
different from what God Himself tells us of His love, 
that it is no wonder it has had so little power to con- 
vince and command the minds of men. So far as it 
gives any distinct idea of the One Who is All in All, 
it is of a huge human intelligence which amuses 
itself with an easy, tepid good nature in kindly 
ingenuities. This does not correspond to the 
powerful truth in Holy Scripture. 

As the belief that God does all things immediately, 
continually reminds us of His love, and promoter 
love of Him, while the notion of a "reign of law " 
has the contrary effect, so also does the former 
" teach us to pray/' while the other discourages 
prayer. This duty, as our religion presents it to us 
in Holy Writ and in all its other institutions, is 
asking of God what we desire and He has to give. 
We have but to consider in what things we are His 
" needy creatures," and the particulars of our prayers 

* See Appendix A on Metaphysics.— If philosophy is to be a seeking of 
truth, it must either avoid all spiritual matters, or in them distinctly sub- 
ject itself to true religion as the highest authority for such truth. 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 227 

present themselves. The wants of physical life, the 
escape from its fears and dangers, the relief of pains 
and griefs, the moral dangers of this world, the 
perils and the hopes of what is " after death." 

Now, according to the "reign of law," at least 
almost all of these things are disposed with mechan- 
ical precision, so that our prayers have no sort of 
effect upon them. We can affect this only as we 
obey or disobey such "laws of Nature " as we know, 
but they will occur no differently for any words or 
thoughts which we address to God. I scarcely 
know whether any one will seriously contend that I 
am as likely to pray for these things (which is the 
question before us now), with that belief, as if I 
looked for them to the gracious will of God without 
a notion of " the reign of law." * I am sure that I 
could not. 

There are elaborate (and as the writers are inge- 
nious men, we must suppose them ingenious) argu- 
ments in books to prove that our prayers are them- 
selves a part of the machine of " laws." But I can 
find no force of truth in these reasonings. I can see 
that if one submits to the assumption of a " reign of 
law," there arises a sort of religious necessity to con- 
struct some such argument. But I have no need of 
it, for I do not allow that false assumption ; its 
absurdity, even in this one instance, should make one 
reject it. 

Certain Christian writers resolved to find some- 

* Imagine my applying to the proprietor of our leading newspaper as 
it was rolling out from the great power press to have a paragraph of 
mine appear in those very columns. 



228 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

thing religious in that theory, and hardly able to 
deny its repugnance to prayer, have said that it 
promotes the praise of God. They aver that science 
enlarges our knowledge of God's works, that we now 
know of the vast magnitudes and multitude of 
heavenly bodies and their all but infinite distances 
and movements; of the almost infinite minuteness 
which the patient studies of naturalists with the 
microscope, and chemists with the spectroscope, 
reveal ; so that we may behold much more of the great- 
ness of God, and adore Him more. Is this last so in 
fact ? Is our age one that worships as no former 
generation ever did ? and do we find most of this 
deep religion in those who know most of the science ? 

Doubtless all such true knowledge may be and 
should be used to glorify the Great and Ever Blessed 
God. But the coldness of devotion in many chief 
men of science, and the contemptuous indifference 
and doubt, even plain atheism of many others of 
them, is a terrible set-off to the supposed gain in the 
right direction. Nor even is that the worst of it. It 
is a fair statement of the fact that the prevailing 
fashion among those most famous and successful in 
these pursuits is to treat all thought of God and 
Divine things as the " unknowable." Is knowledge 
gained by the suppression of religious thought, upon 
the whole a gain to religion ? 

Thus this very increase of knowledge of stars, 
plants, and animal life, if pursued as a science 
founded upon the "reign of law," so far from making 
men love and praise God, is, in the main, of an irre- 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 229 

ligious tendency. A man who knows no more of 
these things than David the King of Israel did, will 
be moved by what he does see to praise God, far more 
than one whose greatly enlarged knowledge of what 
the Maker has done, has been gained by ascribing all 
to some imagined power or mechanism which he 
calls " Nature." If he will renounce that fiction and 
agree with me in seeing the will and act of God in 
everything, we can always join in the anthem, " All 
Thy works praise Thee ! " 

Another part of our religion is to believe the 
marvellous things which God has done, out of that 
usual order which we call " nature." The notion of 
a " reign of law " opposes this faith as it does prayer 
and praise. Many incidental illustrations of this 
have already occurred in the course of this investiga- 
tion. We have then the same necessity of our Chris- 
tian men of science, and the same attempt on their 
part to construct a theory by which miracles accord 
with the " reign of law." And we have the same 
failure in it. Why does not the real resolution of 
this difficulty occur to them ? Like other great 
truths, its very simplicity and obviousness baffle 
some ingenious minds. The notion of a "reign of 
law " cannot be adjusted to that greatest truth, the 
Gospel of God, because it is not true itself. 

But before we make a final scrutiny of what is 
said of the Divine miracles being " interpositions " in 
laws of Nature and the like, let us observe the bear- 
ing upon the whole question of certain other works 
iind gifts of God for which we call upon Him by 
20 



230 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

prayer, and which no one supposes to come by, or 
according to, those "laws." Men either disbelieve 
entirely in the spiritual blessings as needful to every 
soul, such as repentance,* a " new heart " " renewed 
day by day," peace of soul, consolation in trouble, 
&c, or they agree that these come direct " from 
above." Nor are they thought to be miraculous 
and extraordinary interpositions in the " reign of 
law." They are too frequent for this, even incessant 
and normal according to the spiritual order. Yet it 
is impossible to separate them from "natural" 
events. The latter are often by our experience 
among the means by which God gives us the former, 
and they are often so related in the Divine history. 
Thus the stumbling of a horse in a rough roadway 
may bring a man to hear the very words which will 
bring him to embrace Our Lord's salvation. Or a 
child's death, which did not occur at all supernatur- 
ally, may change the whole spiritual life of its 
mother, or a desolate heart be filled with joy and 
thankfulness to God by some event in the ordinary 
course of things, but which we call with truth a 
" good Providence." 

Here is a vast complex of direct acts of God, not 
only equally numerous and normal with the others, 
but while parallel with them, having innumerable 
reciprocal dependences and connections. They occur 
upon the occasion of human prayers, with all the 
irregularity in time and inconsistencies in desire of 
millions of men's wills ; (or if we could leave these 

* M Then hath God, &c, granted repentance," &c— Acts xi. 18. 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 231 

prayers out of account, according to the spiritual 
needs of men immeasurably varied by their desires 
and acts). It is then impossible that the other set 
of events should occur in an invariable mechanical 
order. But if such u laws of Nature " are always set 
aside for these incessant spiritual purposes, the last 
idea of " law " in them has disappeared ; it is not clear 
which is the "law" and which the " interference." 
The scientific man would tell you that there was 
nothing worth contending for as " law " in such a 
case. 

The " reign of law " once conceded, the common 
device for maintaining faith in the Divine miracles, 
is to say that God " reserved to Himself a power to 
interpose " in some rare cases in the inexorable 
action of " law." I was never able to satisfy myself 
with this even when the true solution of the difficulty 
had not occurred to me. I did not find it in Holy 
Scripture, nor anything suggesting, equivalent or 
corresponding to it. I had a painful feeling that it 
violated my highest and, therefore, truest apprehen- 
sion of God. Was this an instinct of truth or a false 
prejudice? Let us try this by our best reason.* 

To " interpose " is to come between two or more 
objects, or place something else between them. If 
we use such terms of the acts of God, it must be by 
analogy to what a man can do. Thus one of us can 
interpose a shield between another man and a flying 
missile, or he can interpose between two combatants, 

* In what will be said of " interposition 1 ' are included all other ex- 
pressions which are used to express the same substantial theory of 
Divine miracles along with " laws of Nature," such as "interference" 
with, or kl suspension " or " violation" of, these "laws." 



232 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

or in any contest of others. But certainly the occa- 
sion of this must be something outside of himself. 
We should all smile at the absurdity of saying that 
a man interposed in what he was doing in person. 
So when we apply these terms to what God does, we- 
should with reasonable care consider how far they 
can represent what is Divine. When He uses words 
to tell us of Himself, then of course they come the 
nearest possible to complete truth that our poor 
speech and intelligence allow of. But when we 
employ them to relieve our difficulties of thought 
about Him, we cannot be too cautious lest we 
transfer w T hat describes human weakness to the con- 
ception of the Almighty One. 

In what true sense then does God " interpose," 
when instead of, as in His usual order of power,, 
causing water to continue where water was, His will 
is that there should be wine in place of it ? No more 
than a man interposes in his own actions when,, 
having a usual practice of sending water to his sick 
and needy neighbor, he chooses to send him wine 
instead. If w^e seek for something analogous in 
human action to represent the supposed case as to 
God's miracles, that ages before them the whole area 
of being and life was filled up with unvarying 
" laws," while the very idea of a miracle is of some- 
thing which does not occur according to those 
" laws "; it would be the case of a man's having 
made an all but perfect machine with a complete 
foresight of all its future working. Would we ever 
speak of his "interposing," even less of his " having 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 233 

reserved to Himself the power to interpose " in this 
working, for other purposes equally foreseen by Him 
from the very first ? All these analogies do, indeed, 
fail, but in the opposite direction, from curing the 
absurdity of this theory of power reserved by God 
to interfere in His own will and work. A man is 
always surrounded by force entirely outside of him- 
self or his will. His very best contrivances are but 
the partial adjustment and use of what is being done 
by Another's will. His best forethought of what is 
to be and what he will yet wish, is but weak conjec- 
ture. Nothing occurs to God but what is His own 
will, and always perfectly foreknown to Him. 

This gratuitous and awkward fiction would never 
have been invented but for the embarrassment of 
their faith, which Christians have brought upon 
themselves with the false notion of " laws of Nature." 
One late writer even maintains this upon the ground 
that the immediate will of God in all things would 
deny His "immutability." After much ponder- 
ing I am unable to find any truth or even meaning 
in this. Is the " immutability " immovability ? 
There seems to lurk here unconsciously a mistake 
about God which would deny His person and will, 
make Him less than a mere mechanism, only the 
machine itself; which tends to the religion of a dumb 
idol, and even to atheism at last. " Immutability," 
as we little creatures can define it of the Eternal and 
Infinite One, is only as He pleases to tell us that His 
goodness and truth, unlike the best of men's, cannot 
change so as to disappoint our faith in Him. This 



234 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

has nothing to do with the notion that some thous- 
ands of years ago He made a great machine of this 
Cosmos, and then left it to run perfectly and irresistibly 
by its own force, except as He might approach it upon 
some very rare occasions, to " interpose " in it with 
miracles. The true unchangeableness* of G-od may, 
indeed, make me happy, as I see that He is doing 
everything now in person, and that He will do all 
with the same love and truth forever. It is not 
merciless and voiceless mechanism miscalled "law," 
nor absurd " interposition." 

But were there any force in this argument of 
" immutability," it would exclude " interposition." 
That would be precisely mutability. Let us return 
to real first principles. The Maker of all existed 
without and before all else. Whatever natures or 
necessities they have, are such because He chose to 
make them such.f In this will of Creation He saw 
all that was to be (that has been and yet will 
be). A mechanism constructed with a reserved 
power to interpose in it upon special occasions could 
only be in anticipation of some emergency not then 
foreseen. Otherwise the Almighty constructor would 
make those occasions a part of the original design 
and future working. Whatever reason is alleged 
for the mechanism at all, is as true of such perfect 
construction of it by Him to whom all things are 
alike easy and all perpetually present. So some of 

* That is a better word than immutability, which is never said of God 
Himself in His Word. Indeed, the word only occurs in our English 
Bible in regard to His spiritual grace and purposes. 

t See Appendix G as to the false notion prevailing about ll eternal 
principles " and Conscience. Also Chapter XVII. on " Law." 



MORAL AND SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. 235 

these apologists begin to see ; and now they retreat 
from the new difficulty, to the position that all which 
is miraculous and spiritual in our religion is a part 
of this invariable "law."* But this is, if possible, 
more untrue than the other. It is contrary to all 
the plain language of God's Word, and to the nature 
of a free will such as. He has given to each of us, and 
to His own freedom, as the Infinite and Most Glorious 
Idea of a person and will. 

Thus it is a powerful suggestion to every one who 
loves God and believes Him in the Gospel, that the 
present Reign of God and not a "reign of law" is 
the truth, in that the former promotes while the 
latter discourages humility, prayer, faith in His 
Word, and love. 

* See " Reign of Law " by Duke of Argyll, &c. 



236 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW.' 



CHAPTBE XVI. 

<k SPECIAL PROVIDENCES." 

ONE sometimes hears well-intending Christian 
people say, " Do you believe in special Provi- 
dences?" Is this a real doubt whether God takes 
any notice of us as individuals ; u of our necessities 
before we ask and our ignorance in asking," although 
He says to us, " Ask and ye shall receive"! If so, 
this doubt must come from a false notion that some 
supra-deical power limits His promise. What can 
that power be ? The Divine Will Itself, bound by 
itself at Creation not to do other than what would 
occur whether men asked it of God or no ? To say 
nothing of this absurdity (as exposed already) of 
law self-imposed upon God's Will, it is impossible* 
that He thus abridges His own grace, since He has 
commanded us to believe in it. 

And what does any man mean by " special Provi- 
dence " ? The Divine Providence cannot but be 
" special" in the just sense that God knows each of 
us personally in all that affects our life, and that He 
provides for it with this complete knowledge, with 
unlimited power, and with infinite love. If we will 
not believe this because we think that individual 
persons (unless they are very important or represen- 
tative ones), may be (or must be ?) overlooked in the 

*This we can say without presumption, " for it is impossible for God 
to lie." 



u SPECIAL PROVIDENCES." 237 

very great number of them ; or that the business of 
this Providence is so vast and complicated that, as in 
the best human administrations, classes only can be 
attended to and individual interests must often 
suffer; then, though we speak of " God," we are 
thinking, not of the True Infinite and Most Glorious 
One, but of some fiction of our minds under that 
name. 

The true God says : " Known unto God are all 
His works from the beginning of the world " [Acts 
xv. 18]. "This poor man cried and the Lord heard 
him and delivered him out of all his distress." 
[Ps. xxxiv. 6]. " Are not two sparrows sold for a 
farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the 
ground without your Father; but the very hairs of 
your head are all numbered" [St. Matt. x. 29, 30]. 
Is the Sermon on the Mount with the same assertion 
running through it all, the Word of God to us, or 
no ? Indeed, if we do not see Holy Scripture full of 
His notice of persons, and especially of His gracious 
attention to the prayers of whosoever calls upon 
Him, be it even the captive in the dungeon or a 
little child, then it is not the real Word of God to 
us ; we are obscuring its illumination of our souls in 
all other matters as well as this, and promoting un- 
belief among other men. These Divine sayings 
agree only with a true thought of One to Whose 
knowledge, power, will, and attentive love, there is 
absolutely no limit, and Who can as easily see and 
do a million things in a moment as one. So far 
then as we regard an infinite minuteness and multi- 



238 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

tude of objects in immediate Providence, it is only 
impossible for this to be impossible to God. 

Probably the honest Christian would say at last: 
" I do not mean to doubt what God says. To think 
as you do, is, indeed, most consoling and elevating ; 
and it makes all the Bible real and true to me. But 
tell me, can we think that God would derange all 
this vast order to grant one of my requests ? Would 
it not bring into what is so nicely balanced and 
adjusted a confusion which could not be remedied ? 
And then if I can be thus gratified, so must thous- 
ands of thousands of others ; and all harmony of 
Nature and forethought of man will be at an end. 
Does He not any way do all things well, having so 
foreseen and devised everything from the beginning ? 
Does He not expect us simply with faith in the 
general good to submit to this and make the best of 
it for that general good in which we have our fair 
part ? 

Why then, I reply, did He tell you to pray, and 
that with an express assurance that He would do as 
you asked ? (We may dismiss, without a direct 
notice, the monstrous answer sometimes given to this 
question by Christian writers who attempt philo- 
sophy where philosophy has no business ; an answer 
which never did and never ought to satisfy a single 
soul, viz.: that it was to make our souls tranquil and 
pious, though He has no intention of doing anything 
more or less whether we pray or not.) Any faith in 
God shows us that His requiring and granting our 
prayers and telling us in His Word that He docs so, 



"special providences." 239 

proves that our doubting questions are mistakes and 
infirmities of our own minds. If, then, these doubts 
come immediately from a notion that Divine Provi- 
dence is a great machine of causes and effects, this 
shows that notion to be false. Let us retire upon 
this solid rock of truth, that God can and will do all 
that He says He will. Let what must be dismissed 
from the mind be, not that faith, but the notion 
which contradicts it. 

Suppose, as an example, that last week you set 
out at nightfall of a winter's day upon a journey of 
many hours by rail ; that before going to sleep in the 
"palace-car " you prayed God for a safe journey; 
that just before the break of day you were awakened 
by a dreadful sound and violent motion, whereupon 
you called upon God for deliverance from sudden and 
great danger. In a few seconds all was still; but 
you and your fellow-travellers found yourselves upon 
the floor of the car, which lay in a steep incline. You 
were all (including a worldly and profane man 
whose place was next yours), safe, except as there 
lay a little way off the crushed and lifeless body of 
an excellent woman, whose life had seemed invaluable 
to her family and to God's Church where she belonged 
to it. As daylight came and you could see what had 
happened, it appeared that a broken rail had thrown 
the whole train violently down a steep bank ; that the 
car in front of yours had rolled over several times in 
the descent, killing or maiming every one within it, 
but that a little tree had caught the corner of }^ours 
before it had turned over once, and thras saved life 



240 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

and limb for every one within it but the unfortunate 
lady. 

(I must confine myself to but one incident of this 
illustration, and not apply the true principle to the 
two cases of the good woman or the worldly man. 
True faith in God according to His own words to us 
has its sufficient answer to the cavils which are 
raised about such cases, as well as that directly pur- 
sued here. It must be sufficient here to say that the 
common notion which has been followed above in 
calling one who has suddenly " died in the Lord," 
unfortunate, is all wrong. Those who lament then 
may be unfortunate ; they are certainly blessed ; 
while we are to be sure that their cases as well as 
those of the selfish and impious who escape great 
perils, are according to the perfect justice and good- 
ness of God.) 

What would you think and say in such a case? 
As you believe in God, and in proportion as you do, 
your first thought would be : " Thanks be to God 
Who heard my prayer for safety last night, Who 
heard my cry for succor this morning, and saved me 
with a great deliverance ! " But would this be 
right ? or would it be a delusion, irrational and 
superstitious? Ought you to correct it by the reflec- 
tion that the rail was broken by the uniform " laws 
of Nature," in the structure of the iron according to 
its original ore and its actual manufacture, with the 
great cold of the season? That this dangerous rail 
was just at this dangerous embankment; that you 
were travelling then and there ; that the little tree 



'special pkovidences." 241 



was growing just where it was ; that at the fatal 
moment your car was just where it was (the matter 
of a second of time determined by the fireman having 
opened the furnace door a little before at one moment 
rather than another); that you were there instead 
of in the seat occupied by the person who was 
injured; that all this was determined by invariable 
"laws of Nature," so that you would be alive and 
unhurt now whether you had prayed or not ; so that 
God did not look upon you at that moment with 
grace and save you? that, therefore, your gratitude 
and adoration are absurd ? 

At which time were you really most wise ? and 
did you see things as they really are ? When you 
thought of God with awe and love? or when you 
were philosophically ungrateful ? 

We may now apply with all and more than its 
force in such uses, the very principle of all supposed 
demonstration of " laws of Nature ": that whatever 
general proposition accounts for, and agrees with, all 
the "known facts" is true. Whatever things are 
true about our higher nature and our spiritual and 
immortal welfare, are at least as much facts as any- 
thing about rocks and fossils. Among such facts of 
the highest order are these, that " men ought alwaj's 
to pray," and that they are free to choose good or 
evil. Now it has been plainly shown that the theory 
of a " reign of law" is in utter discord with these 
facts. How can I then rationally assent to it ? How 
can I do otherwise in adherence to truth than 
reject it ? 
21 



242 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 



I know that some persons follow another method, 
of being satisfied with a supposed accord of " the 
reign of law M with all physical facts ; and then either 
pass over the others without notice, or assume that 
the discord is only in appearance, and hunt for the 
clue to some yet undiscovered truth which is to har- 
monize all, or are so bent upon absolute assertion of 
the theory that they profess themselves fully satis- 
fied with notions of prayer and free-will which con- 
tradict all my reason. But why is not mine the true 
" scientific " method, of rejecting the " reign of law " 
because it does not agree with the chief facts ? Of 
course then if any future discoveries remove the dis- 
crepancy, the way will be, so far forth, clear for 
reasonable assent. But pending them, such assent is 
not reasonable. 



law. 243 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

LAW. 

WHEN writers use the term " laws of Nature " 
and the like, some even now admit as most 
formerly distinctly defined, that these are in no sense 
really laws, but the convenient statement of a general 
fact. And why then am I not content with this ? 
Some of my devout friends have even said, " You and 
these Christian writers who maintain ' the reign of 
law ' really mean the same thing, and it is but a ques- 
tion of words/' I should be glad to think so, and 
especially to believe that such use of the term law is 
harmless and proper. But I cannot ; for, as I think, 
besides what to this effect has been already proved, 
I shall now be able to show to all fair-minded persons 
that there is a false principle and an evil tendency 
of thought and life involved in all this use of the 
term " law " in regard to mechanical and physical 
things. 

But first let me invert the question above and ask 
my interrogators, Why then do you insist upon 
speaking of " laws " which you say yourselves are 
not really laws, and when these phrases, as has even 
been already shown, have such false uses and evil 
tendencies, or at least of which some of your fellow 
Christians have such fears ? Is this " required of 
God in Holy Scripture " ? No one will say that. On 
the contrary, we have already seen that it is not 



244 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

according to that Word of God, " but rather repug- 
nant thereto." Why not then cancel it from all our 
expressions ? If this deprives us of a brief and con- 
venient phrase in ordinary language or scientific 
research, that is little compared with the least devia- 
tion from truth. It will really save some words ; 
for then we will not need these frequent apologies 
and protestations as to what we do not mean by 
" law." Then also it is agreed by all careful 
thinkers that one of the chief causes of false reason- 
ing is the use of words with two or more different 
senses. Anyway, with you, it is only a question of 
words ; with us it is one of supreme principle. 

Law, in its primary and necessary meaning, 
implies that a superior, rightful authority imposes 
its will upon its subjects. It needs two free per- 
sonal wills : the one commanding, the other choos- 
ing to obey : a Person or persons giving law, a per- 
son or persons who should obey it, but whose action 
would not be obedience unless they were also free 
to disobey at the peril of wickedness and punishment. 
It is so with " the powers that be " in human law.* 
If in speaking of obedience to God we were only 
making the best possible attempt to express Divine 
things in human language, using those terms of our 
own action which came nearest to them, we should 
call His commands " laws." 

But probably the truth lies deeper than this. As 
man's first conception of a person was not of himself, 
but of his Eternal Lord, so his first thought of law 

*•' Law is the expression of legislative will."— Code of Louisiana. 



law. 245 

was of the commands of that Person. Then we 
properly apply this to all rightful authority which 
He appoints and delegates to some of us over others, 
and especially to the rules enacted by legislatures, 
and executed by magistrates, for the peace and safety 
of nations. Only with this accords what He says in 
many sentences of His Written Word ; as for 
instance : " There is no power but of God ": " There 
is One Lawgiver." 

But as we look above ourselves for this true idea 
of law, and find it in the Word of God, we see that 
it is not the will of mere power (" arbitrary v — as 
men say) — nor of supreme power with mere justice 
(as the very highest analogy of human law suggests), 
but that law belongs to that most glorious Divine 
mystery of the love of God. It is by this love that 
He has made certain things right and just for men. 
He has made these laws of love for us, that we may 
do His will perfectly and happily by loving Him 
and our fellow-creatures. This truth is as simple as 
a little child's mind, and at the same time as pro- 
found as the Divine Eternity : deeper than all the 
thoughts of all our sage?!. 

Now, nothing can be more against this supreme 
law of love than forgetfulness, doubts, and even 
denials that God is a Person. * Some men seem to 



*This term is used with entire faith in that great mystery of the 
11 Holy, Blessed and glorious Trinity— three Persons and one God." It 
is from the poverty of human speech to express such truth, that "per- 
son" must be used in different senses. Here it is necessary to declare 
that God is the One who is all that we can ever suppose of a person, of 
which other persons are only partial instances, as opposed to the sort of 
atheism called "pantheism," which uses the Divine name without iti 
meaning. 



246 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

achieve the same baleful result by the intellectual 
perversity of denying that we of mankind are per- 
sons, that we have a real knowledge and will of 
choice of good rather than evil. This overthrows 
the law of God ; for persons only, and not merely 
helpless 

— " parts of one stupendous whole," 

can love and obey Him. But this doubt or denial of 
our own personality is an even less insane (or un- 
sound) exercise of thought and wicked will, than to 
destroy the possibility of our loving God by denying 
" that He is."* It is mere self-deception in any man 
to persuade himself that any toleration of the word 
God saves the man who says there is no such 
Person, from being an atheist. We can only love a 
Person. Try it but once. "Thou shalt love with 

all thy heart," etc. " the All " ? the " soul of the 

world"? — the sum-total of all matter and motion, 
which is not a person? It is absurd. It is profane. 
So even short of this miserable atheism, any doubt 
that God is the Absolute Person, or any cold inat- 
tention to that truth, is, in proportion, against the 
law of love. 

It is a fact that while the Word of God in His 
Book and Church expresses this truth of Him as a 
Person with wonderful simplicity and power, and so 
all Christendom is still penetrated with it, this influ- 
ence is opposed by the idea of Natural law in various 

* " He that cometh unto God must believe that He is " — i. e. that He 
is what He is essentially. The pantheistic word is nothing. The 
hatred of modern atheists is against " a personal God." 



law. 247 

shades of opinions. Thus some who are at the very 
head of " Science " now, state it just as Spinoza did 
two hundred years ago : " The laws of Nature are 
the only realization of the Divine Will : if anything 
in Nature would happen to contradict them, God 
would contradict Himself." Others say, as Leibnitz 
did, that while God in Creation disposed the parts of 
(t Nature " " in such a manner that they are able of 
themselves to execute their functions and maintain 
their activity," He still reserved a power of extra- 
ordinary interference. Others admit that it is going 
too far to assert such automatic mechanical " forces "; 
that God does indeed do everything, but that the 
" laws of Nature " are such as He in Creation " bound 
Himself" by, in what He was yet to do. While 
others yet, as though no man dare reject the term 
itself, yet shrinking from the presumption of this 
last assertion as well as those other deviations from 
the true faith of God, say they only mean by " laws 
of Nature," the general facts which are so far dis- 
covered by human science, or supposed to be. 

Let us carefully observe the necessary effect of 
any of this use of the term " law " upon the obedi- 
ence of real law, that is, true religion and virtue. 
The demonstration which has been already made of 
"the reign of God" in all things, that all existence, 
force, motion and life is always simply His immediate 
will, has prepared for a true conception of the 
tendency of these terms " laws of Nature " and the 
like. Thus then we know of " Nature," that in the 
beginning God created all. This was the first of all 



248 THE BEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

substance, force or life other than Himself. So also 
everything continues to be what it is and to do 
what it does because He wills so. If it only cease to 
be His positive will that it should exist, by that it 
ceases to be. The real existence, the real force of 
anything is His will. Strictly speaking, we cannot 
call anything else force; as e. g. to say that a stone 
falls by the force of gravity. The real cause and 
force is the Will of God that this should take place, 
which if it should cease (e. g.. ; if we could suppose 
such a thing, by His mere inattention to matter) all 
that Ave call force of gravitation would instantly 
cease. Gravitation then is a result, not a cause ; an 
effect, not a force. 

So far then as we think and speak correctly, we 
mean by this and like expressions the observed fact 
that e. g. all parts of matter tend toward one 
another, whether this describe the movements of 
stars in curves of a thousand millions of miles, or 
those of a tear rolling down a cheek.* But we may 
have a wrong notion that the "law" or " force of 
gravitation " is an existing power, which with energy, 
extent, and infinite minuteness too, all not less than 
Divine, of itself does innumerable "great wonders." 
In that case we probably suppose this to have 
begun with the Creation, and so by the will of God. 
But we suppose it after that to have force in itself 
("a certain independence," as Ohristlieb says,) 
which will continue indefinitely, unless the Creator 
puts a stop to it. This, indeed, is the notion in its 

*I cite purposely this celebrated illustration of a " law of Nature." 



law. 249 

least irreligious form, which prevails and grows by 
the use of such terms as " laws of Nature." 

But even this tends to make men doubt, or at least 
forget that God is the Great Person. All attention 
and admiration is engrossed in " Nature." Power is 
only noticed in the vast " forces " which are sup- 
posed to do such great wonders. Even what is sug- 
gested to the dullest minds, of Divine authority and 
majesty, as when " thunders utter their voices," is 
transferred to a vague fiction called " Nature " or 
"Law." Thus is defeated that purpose of Divine 
love that " the invisible things of Him" should be 
"understood by the things that are made, even His 
eternal power and Godhead." They are made the 
very means of forgetting and even denying that 
there is that Person — the very truth of " His Eternal 
Power and Godhead.' 1 

We have already seen that this loss of vision of 
God as a Person is the greatest calamity that can 
befall men. Law and life for us in our very nature 
as created by Him in love, consist first in a personal 
love for Him, which makes it our greatest desire to 
do all His will. Thus His law becomes our will, 
that will is gratified and we are happy. A part of 
that Divine law and will is that we should love our 
fellow-men, being just and kind to each of them 
according to the "Golden Eule " of Our Lord and 
Saviour. For this reason nothing worse could befall 
us than to lose sight of the Glorious Person of God, 
even if every one was in obedience to this law of 
love, as innocent as the first man was made. 



250 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

But it is j r et worse for us who have all lost that 
perfect nature made "in the image of God." And 
our duty of love to God is even increased by that 
" great mystery of Godliness ": that He has so loved 
this lost world as to make a Eedemption of all who 
will repent and return to Him; that God the Son 
has come to this world in person for this work and 
been a man among us. Anything which tends to 
keep sinful men from returning by this great salva- 
tion to the perfect love of God is a mistake and a 
misfortune of the worst kind. 

Law, then, the true law of perfect love to God and 
man, must not be obscured by any wrong use of the 
term or degraded by other association. Especially 
those who begin with the dangers of a perverse and 
selfish self-will, and the dulness and blindness about 
divine and spiritual things, of a dreadful fall from 
natural innocence, cannot afford to do anything 
which shall aggravate such danger to their own 
souls, or, O even greater horror ! shall put their 
fellow-men in such peril. Something more than the 
careless folly or even the perverse wickedness of 
men must be employed in this. Probably it is also 
among the cruel inventions of "that Wicked One." 

This false use of the term law does mischief also in 
morals as well as in religion. It accustoms us to the 
thought of all law and duty as separate from will 
and choice j as of something only of cause and effect, 
not of right or wrong. For a man then to do some 
right thing is " obeying a law " in the sense in which 
it is commonly said that we ought to " obey the laws 



LAW. 251 

of .Nature" in order to have good health, that is, 
avoid certain acts merely because certain ill conse- 
quences follow them. Thus, one should " obey the 
laws of Nature " in not eating too much, since that 
will be followed by bad digestion ; or in not being a 
drunkard, from the physical consequences of that; or 
even in not defrauding another man, since (to say 
nothing of the prisons of real law) it has the 
" natural penalty " of the ill-will and distrust of 
other men. 

How different is this from the true idea of law as 
the will of God, to be obeyed from love to Him and 
in love to my neighbor as myself! How hostile to 
Divine law is all the tendency of this notion of 
u Natural law r " ! The one is essentially generous ; 
the other, essentially selfish. Yet such is the secret 
and unnoticed advance of its influence, that it is be- 
coming common for Christian writers and preachers 
to speak of the resemblance, and even identity of our 
duty with " laws of Nature," of the punishment of 
wrong-doing being merely the " natural result," and 
even of the awful wrath of God after death as being 
" according to a law of Nature." 

In words which God uses to speak to man we 
shall also always find something more than what we 
call " questions of words," or the arbitrariness of 
mere human speech. In none such is this more true 
than in this very word "law" in all its uses and 
abuses. Thus, in our English language, u law of" 
always declares the authority which imposes the law 
and is to be obeyed. The " law of God " is what He 



252 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

commands ; the " law of man " is what is determined 
by' human authority. The "laws of Nature" are — 
what? Is this "Nature'' a lawgiver? And who 
are its subjects ? Or does this great will make irre- 
sistible laws for its great complicated and all but 
infinite self? But though certainly there is no will 
of Nature, either to impose or to obey law, those 
who use the false words are forced by them into a 
false thought. Unconsciously they make mankind, 
and even God, the subjects of such law; and on the 
other hand, they imagine " Nature " something vast, 
forceful — scarcely less than infinite, eternal and 
almighty — at least having a lease of power for a 
thousand ages, which cannot be cancelled during 
that term, and a possession and dominion (with 
perhaps some small reserves of interposition for the 
real owner) Avhich cannot be trespassed upon by any 
one while that title lasts. Thus the expression and 
notion of "laws of Nature," even in its most attenu- 
ated form, and as adjusted to arguments in behalf of 
Christian faith, forces us to think of God as limited 
by something outside of Himself. And while this is 
true even of the more thoughtful and devout, it pro- 
motes actual atheism in the more worldly and un- 
spiritual. 

This " question of words ,5 is then one of the 
greatest questions of fact and of Divine truth. So is 
it also a matter of the most urgent practical effect 
" for the glory of God and the good of man's estate." 
No subject of our thoughts can more unite these two. 
"Love is the fulfilling of the law." God is the 



law. 253 

supreme object of that love, and we glorify Him only 
by it. Law for man is the purpose of his existence, 
and to fulfil it includes all that is good for him. It 
does not say that to fulfil the law is love, that is, ac- 
cording to the weak and false paraphrase of our day, 
that to perform eveiy precept of duty to our fellow- 
men (if that were possible) is equivalent to love, and 
is the real meaning of that as a figure of speech. It 
does say that all true law is His Will and Word; 
that its first and great commandment is to love Him 
supremely; that another part of His Will and Law 
is to love our fellow-men ; that especially, having 
fallen from the happiness and honor of such love, we 
should long and labor by every means to regain this, 
and to replace our perverse and selfish self-will by a 
love to Him and our neighbor which makes it our 
greatest desire and pleasure to obey His command- 
ments. 

This is the true doctrine and practice of virtue and 
piety — really "one and inseparable." It is some- 
times falsely said that " duty" is the greatest word 
and thought, and is what has made the English race 
so true and powerful. Any such power for good 
which " duty " has had has been in that Divine truth, 
of which it is only a cold shadow. Shall we try to 
be wise above what God has written ? The true 
sense of duty is of some one of the many rights, acts 
or relations which God has commanded within His 
law of love. All, and more, that the other word 
contains as a principle to direct or to animate us in 
doing right, is contained in the true law, which is 
22 



254 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

what God Himself has given us for our happiness 
and life in Him. To personify " duty " and make it 
the supreme principle of conduct, comes from that 
false notion of " eternal principles " of right and 
wrong which some Christian moralists patronize, 
which came from the Greek philosophers, and not 
only cannot be found in the New Testament, but is 
against all its doctrine, and tends really to atheism. 
He alone is " eternal." He is " the First and the 
Last." "Of Him and to Him and through Him are 
all things." Whatever is good or true, is such be- 
cause it is His will; not that these are His will 
because they are good or true. The most august and 
perfect actor of duty that ever lived on the earth, 
and even though He were God as well as man, has 
no other account of it all but " to do the will of Him 
that sent me." Thus, and only thus, is all true law 
Divine love. 

The greatest intellectual (as well as spiritual) folly 
for a man is not to see God at all as a Person, for 
then he cannot love Him. The next is to question 
that greatest truth and say, "I doubt whether there 
be such a person ; if there be, perhaps He is not per- 
sonally ' knowable '; I will give all my thoughts to 
the great ' Nature ' which I do know." Can such a 
man love God ? But short of this, a man may so 
forget God by transferring to something which he 
calls "Nature " all that reminds us of His power and 
law, that it is almost as if there were " no God." If 
he does not at all repent and believe on Our Lord, you 
may say that this is any way the perverseness of 



law. 255 

fallen man. How woful it is then that this evil will 
of his has been reinforced by that false notion of 
"law" and "Nature " to obscure the thought of God 
and his love ! how terrible if we help to maintain 
such fatal delusions among our fellowmen ! But 
even if such a man be an honest Christian, how 
much love of God and of his fellowmen is lost to him 
by the same false thought ! 

After this enquiry was completed it occurred to 
the author that some persons might still be confused 
by the notion that the Eeign of God must be a 
" reign of law," because it is generally admitted 
among civilized men that the highest idea of civil 
society is that of "government by law " as opposed 
to "personal government." By reflecting upon the 
real principle of this we shall see what truth it sug- 
gests in the present enquiry. 

Whence then comes the yearning for " paternal 
government " sometimes intelligently felt, among us 
who felicitate ourselves that ours is not such ? It is 
very easy to dismiss this with an impatient rebuke 
as mere servile vanity, love of the " trappings " of 
power which are so much seen in monarchies, and 
the hope in that case to be of the small favored class 
at the expense of degradation for most of our 
countrymen. No doubt such wishes are sometimes 
indulged in among a free people. In any case we 
are not grateful and thoughtful enough about the 
blessings of equal laws and the self-government of 
our nation. 

Yet, on the other hand, we may see how human 



256 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

law will of course be imperfect in its application. 
That no forethought or experience of man can adjust 
general laws so that they will not work injustice in 
some cases that arise; that the distribution of power 
among many men will not seldom put it in the 
hands of ignorant, unjust or corrupt persons, yet 
greatly diminish the sense of shame or responsibility 
which is some check to this mischief. Those who 
observe these evils and think only of some remedy for 
them, may look with desire to the theory of personal 
government by one man, so sure of his authority as 
to be firm, and so conspicuous to public judgment 
that he dare not be corrupt, yet not disabled by 
technical law from d<»ing substantial justice in each 
actual case. 

On the other hand, if all power really rests with 
one who is noways amenable to the many, the con- 
sequences of his being a bad man are fearfully aggra- 
vated. Then also were he the wisest and most just 
in a great nation, he is altogether dependent for his 
knowledge of facts and for his actual execution ot 
justice upon many thousands of other men, whom he 
cannot possibly know so as to choose them wisely to 
these ends. No doubt then we shall agree in general 
that it is a mistake to prefer a " personal govern- 
ment " among men to one " of law." 

But when we " lift our eyes to Him Who dwelleth 
in the Heavens," all the conditions of this question 
are changed. He is the " one law-giver," source and 
eternal seat of all just authority. In the former case 
the " personal governor" is one of His imperfect and 



law. 257 

perverse subjects exercising a little delegated power 
over others of them for Him ; one of His creatures 
who only began and continues to exist as He con- 
tinues to wish this, directed to maintain for himself 
and some other men the social order of peace and 
justice which His love provides for all alike. True 
laws enforce men's duties to one another which 
belong with their relations. He is the maker of all 
the relations and all the laws. This government 
only continues rightly as His personal will to that 
effect continues. He is all truth, all power, all love. 
Therefore His personal government has no possible 
defect of justice, of ignorance of facts, of selfish self- 
will, of being the unconscious instrument of some 
one else's self-will. On the contrary, it includes a 
perfect, personal knowledge, and a just and impartial 
personal love of each one of His subjects. 

Our free government is not " personal," because 
those who make and execute our laws are fellow- 
subjects of those laws with us. His government 
must be personal in that He is the sole necessary 
Supreme Person, Whose will is all law to all others, 
while He is subject to nothing. It is a government 
by law for us, in the sense that we have His known 
will given us as a law. And yet for us it is personal, 
in that " God dealeth with us as with sons "; not as 
though He were any way constrained by general 
law T s made for classes of His subjects, which, as we 
sometimes say, must in some cases work hardship to 
individuals, but as dealing with such individual per- 
sons with most minute and exact notice of all par- 



258 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

ticulars. As regards Himself, it is in fact the one 
only " paternal " government, represented to us by 
nothing else among men (and by that of necessity 
most imperfectly), than by the father of a family ; a 
government in which the commanding will and per- 
sonal love are one, and obedience and love in like 
unity required of the subjects. Among its first laws 
is this: "When ye pray, say, Our Father Who art 
in Heaven." 



RESULTS COLLECTED. 259 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

RESULTS COLLECTED. 

LET us dow collect the results of this whole 
investigation in one compact statement. 

It has appeared that never before among English 
speaking people were religious doubts more common 
or so much diffused among all classes, especially 
younger persons ; that these doubts are raised upon 
arguments from the " laws of Nature," and the 
generally received notion of all men of science, 
whether Christian or un-Christian, of a " reign of 
law "• and that the modern writers in behalf of 
faith all concede this notion, and argue only to show 
that in accordance with it we may yet believe in the 
Christian miracles, in prayer, and in God's Word ; 
but that, however ingenious these arguments are, 
and even conclusive to those who do not need con- 
vincing, they do not remove the unbelief, or even 
check its advance. 

I have undertaken to show that these arguments 
are unsuccessful simply because the supposed truth 
of a " reign of law " with which our religion must 
be reconciled, is no truth at all, but a gratuitous and 
irreligious fictioa. That assumption has been 
demonstrated to be, not only not proved, but posi- 
tively and mischievously untrue, and that to argue 
from it involves a surrender of the true grounds of 



260 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

faith. I therefore entreat all Christians who read 
this, to reject that notion and all its atheistic corol- 
laries together, and to show to others that they need 
not be disturbed in Christian faith by any arguments 
about " laws of Nature." 

Here, indeed, we might rest until some proof of 
the assumption was yet presented ; whatsoever has 
been heretofore taken for such proof having been 
examined, and having failed to stand the tests of 
truth. Indeed, such proof has scarcely ever been 
attempted. It has been merely taken for granted 
that there were such "laws of Nature " and their 
" reign." If this is still maintained by any one upon 
the impression of its being a self-evident truth, one 
of those statements upon which all men agree upon 
the first apprehension of them (as that the whole of 
anything is greater than any one of its parts), I may 
disprove that at once by the fact that one mind at 
least (my own), cannot after much reflection even 
conceive of its being true.* 

Thus, being neither self-evident nor proved, it 
ought to be dismissed from all thought by that just 
principle which Sir William Hamilton calls "the law 
of parcimony, which forbids the multiplication with- 
out necessity of entities, powers, principles or 
causes." And so Christians, who know already the 
All-sufficient Power and Cause of all existence and 



♦Besides, If such self-evident truth, It is a great religious truth, and 
must have been known to mankind from the first ages, and certainly 
*'in the fullness of time" appeared in all the Creeds and Liturgies of 
the Church, whereas (and this is a powerful argument against its being 
anyway credible by Christians) ft is in none of these expressed or 
implied. 



RESULTS COLLECTED. 261 

life in the Infinite Will, should not imagine, " with- 
out necessity," such "powers," &c., in "forces of 
Nature " and the like. 

But the notion is so widely prevalent and so 
deeply rooted in all the language of our day, and is so 
injurious to men's faith in the Most Blessed God and 
to their love of Him, that I have advanced to the 
positive investigation of its merits by every test. 
In reviewing the results of this for our final judg- 
ment, let us all remember that in comparison with 
truth our former opinions or pride of opinion, or the 
authority of famous names, the honor of being called 
intelligent or the shame of being despised as narrow- 
minded and ignorant — all these are nothing, 

There is one further proof which appears now for 
the first time, and only because the other proofs are 
collected. One of the foregoing arguments, indeed, 
that from the Word of God, far outweighs all the 
others, and is really decisive. But the Good One 
allows our weak intelligence the help of many others, 
and in their consilience* furnishes another still to 
bind them into an irresistible demonstration. For 
when all the parts of an investigation point to one 
conclusion, the force of the united proof is not 
merely the amount of these several parts, but many 
times greater ; so that reasonable doubt is excluded. 

It was proved, 1, that the question whether there 
is a " reign of law," or whether we ought to believe 
that the immediate Will of God is the only real 

* Or M leaping together." It is the name which Prof. Whewell gives 
to the increased force of such a concurrence of proofs. 



262 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Force, is rather, if not exclusively, a question of 
Eeligion. 

2. That as such it is not to be determined by what 
is called Natural Theology, but (3) by the Word of 
God. 

4. That there is much greater certainty of truth 
in a " Word of God " than in any knowledge which 
men can acquire otherwise, so that the meaning of 
the former ought not to be controlled by the latter. 

5. That the notion of a " reign of law " is not 
found in Holy Scripture ; which would not be, if that 
notion were true. 

6. That the opposite, that is the truth of the im- 
mediate Will and Power of God in all things, is 
taught there in a thousand places. 

This is really conclusive. But continuing our in- 
vestigation by a history of the opinions of men con- 
cerning this, we find — 7, That the belief in God's 
immediate power is taken for granted by early 
Christian writers — that of (8) u Nature " and its 
" laws " appeared first among pagan philosophers, 
and that long before Our Lord established His 
Church. 

9. That the latter was akin to and of like sugges- 
tion with the belief in many gods, and yet was — 

10. In intellectual tendency atheistic, as causing 
acute speculators to conclude that really " there is no 
God." 

11. That some time after the Apostles it began to 
come among Christian writers, from the reading of 
Plato and Aristotle. 



RESULTS COLLECTED. 263 

12. That such Christian writers erred in imagin- 
ing that they could better understand or interpret 
God's Word by the help of those philosophers, 
whereas the only effect of this would be to obscure 
its meaning. 

13. That the Holy Ghost by St. Paul had ex- 
pressly forbidden this to the Church, and foretold 
these evil consequences ; and that St. Paul could not 
but have had in his mind the philosophy of Plato as 
w r ell as of the other Greeks, and did not, in fact, 
except it from his condemnation. 

14. That this and the notion of " laws of 
Nature " came again into Christendom in the Dark 
Ages, from the writings of Mohammedan atheists. 

15. That it found its way into modern science 
from the first. 

16. That nevertheless it was not then entertained 
in the prevailing sense of our day, by the greatest 
men of science, who were both devout believers and 
men of profound thought. 

17. That it grew strong and developed to what it 
is now, as " the reign of law," while lurking in con- 
venient phrases, which were often expressly declared 
by those w T ho used them, not to mean what is now 
generally allowed to be their meaning. 

18. That the opposite and true idea, of God's will 
as the only real force, was maintained even by some 
of the Arabian philosophers, but later and better by 
devout Christian thinkers, as Des Cartes and Male- 
branche. 

19. That it has had witnesses in the Church of 
every age since. 



264 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

20. That the argument and authority of Hooker 
for a " reign of law," and his supposed chief proof of 
it from Holy Scripture, is a mistake of the meaning 
of the passage cited. 

21. That the religious opposition to the Coper- 
nican astronomy, and the persecution of Galileo 300 
years ago, are no proof that we ought to adjust our 
religion to the notion of "laws of Nature" or any" 
results of that notion. 

22. That this false notion is not necessary to 
scientific investigation, and if it were, it would be 
better to dispense with that investigation. 

23. That it is proved false by not according with 
one of the greatest of facts — the freedom of man's 
will. 

24. Also by its inconsistency with the greatest of 
all facts — the absolute Will and Love of God. 

25. That if it be received by us as certain truth, 
its entire discrepancy with the general language and 
spirit of the Holy Scriptures, casts doubt upon their 
truth, and weakens their power over our souls. 

26. That its necessary and actual tendency is to 
change the heretofore received meaning of Holy 
Writ. 

27. That it has already exacted such a change of 
meaning as to the Creation, and thus rashly dis- 
turbed the faith of many. 

28. That it is advancing to require the assent of 
all to like changes of our understanding of Holy 
Scripture, as to the primitive innocence and spiritual 
perfection of the first man and his fall from that 
etate, as also of other matters of Christian doctrine. 



RESULTS COLLECTED. 265 

29. That it is against the moral and spiritual good 
of mankind, promoting pride, self-sufficiency, selfish- 
ness and spiritual dulness. 

30. That it is against prayer and praise, faith and 
love. 

31. That it tends to deny God's giving of spiritual 
good to men. 

32. That it prevents their seeing His loving will 
and power in all events of their life. 

33. That the term "law" of necessary effect 
implies a free will governing and giving law, and 
other free wills subject to law and bound to obey it; 
so that the use of it for things necessary and 
mechanical, as of "laws of Nature" and their 
11 reign," is essentially against the knowledge of 
right and wrong, and against true religion. 

34. That it thus tends to unbelief and disobedience 
of the real law of God. 

35. That it already, in fact, shows results of this 
dreadful tendency. 

36. That the Will, which our best reason suggests ta 
us as the real and only Force, is what God's Word fully 
discloses as Himself immediately working all things 
"by the wish of His own Will," which fact we are 
never to separate from the other supreme fact, that 
"God is love," the measure of apprehension of 
which is the measure of our glory and felicity ; 
though we can never include it in our thoughts, since 
it will always immeasurably overflow our power of 
thinking. 

37. That this truth of " the Eeign of God " has no 
23 



266 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

difficulties for faith in His Word, its miracles, 
prophecies and promises. 

38. That it promotes love, prayer and praise to 
God, as well as the love of our neighbor man and all 
virtue; and thus it alone accords with " the light of 
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ." 

We may feel confident that in this examination no 
important matter bearing upon the truth in question 
has been overlooked or unfairly stated. Consider 
again the irresistible " consilience " of all these 
proofs bearing upon one glorious and blessed result. 
There is nothing left for us but to dismiss forever 
the false notion of a "reign of law," and to 
" embrace and ever holdfast" the truth which it 
denies. Thus even now we may begin to join in the 
everlasting chorus: " Hallelujah ! for the Lord 
GOD Omnipotent EBIGNBTH ! " 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 267 

CHAPTER XIX. 

SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 

THE writer wishes to say a few words more, as 
one man to another, to each of his readers of 
three classes. And first to plain people, who are in 
no sense scientific, and have only been disturbed in 
their quiet faith as Christians by what they read and 
hear all around them, that such faith is against "the 
laws of Nature." To me, looking again over all this 
field of discussion, it seems a very small matter 
whether 1 have merely the best of the argument 
with those whom I oppose. But it seems a very 
great matter to have said something, or to say it 
now, by which you or I may get to have, or keep, a 
true, steady faith in God. We cannot be happy 
without that. We cannot have the glory and peace 
of children of Him, without such a faith that His 
Word will illuminate all this world and life for us, 
and shine into the Eternity beyond. Without this 
faith we cannot be good Christians, having real life 
in Our Glorious Lord, the Son of God ; the Holy 
Spirit also making us holy. All the books, news- 
papers, science, intellect, civilization or " culture " 
which we could have, or aspire to, could not begin to 
make up for the loss of that. All of them that are 
any way against that faith stand between us and the 

TRUTH. 

There is now in what every one reads much that 



268 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

ca&ts doubt and scorn upon that faith ; and there are 
so many things said by those who pass for the more 
knowing, as though no well-informed person could 
really believe the Holy Bible in what has always 
before seemed its plain sense, that it would not be 
strange if you were unsettled by this. Then the 
books and papers and sermons in reply have not 
helped you much or any. There have been in them, 
instead of the courage and common sense of an un- 
moved belief, many signs of timidity, or such cold, 
far-fetched, rareligious arguments, calling you down 
from the high grounds of faith. Sometimes, if there 
was any real meaning, it was concealed in new and 
outlandish words — 

" of learned length and thundering sound." 

So you have feared that henceforth none were to see 
the true God and eternal life in the Holy Scriptures, 
except very ignorant persons, and the very few 
others who could be devout and " scientific." Per- 
haps you have trembled about this, not for your- 
selves, but for your children and all those who are to 
come after us all. 

I do hope I have now done something to reassure 
you ; to break for our younger people, who are 
eager to read and believe everything that is against 
old ideas, the fascination of this arrogant and impu- 
dent belief. It has been plainly shown that it is a 
delusion to believe in a " reign of law," and with this 
notion to disturb our faith in God and His Word. 
Let us then believe every word in the Holy Bible 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 269 

about the Creation, the Flood, the great miracles 
done among the Israelites and all their wonderful 
history \ for it is literal truth. Believe the prophe- 
cies and commands of the Lord God — all. Especially 
believe the Gospels, the Acts and Epistles of the 
Apostles, the glorious and awful Kevelation. " Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ." Let nothing which is 
said about " laws of Nature " against this true reli- 
gion, have weight with you, for there are no such 
laws. 

None the less for these imaginary " laws of 
Nature," pray to God, and none the less hopefully 
and earnestly. He does listen to you with favor. 
He has power absolutely unlimited to do what you 
ask, and He is Infinite Love, which will decide upon 
your desire only by what is best for you. Don't be at 
all ashamed of this because, as "Appleton's " or " the 
Atlantic " or your city newspaper may inform you, 
Dr. Holmes, with his Boston sarcasm, or even Dr. 
Tyndall, with his British science, thinks your faith 
silly. It is these men who are the blind dupes of 
their own vanity of intellect. 

And thank the Great God for everything good 
when you enjoy it. We ought not to do this only 
when it is something that we have prayed for before. 
Unsought and unthought of blessings are to be re- 
membered with this grateful love, and with a tender 
self-reproach which even increases our sense of obli- 
gation. Yes, let us believe and think of each such 
thing as coming direct to us from our Good God ; 
for this is true. It is true of all things : of the 



270 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

morning sun shining in the fresh air ; of the welcome 
rains on fields perishing with thirst : of our food, 
our thoughts, our escapes from danger ; of every- 
thing that makes up our life. 

If any one has followed this argument with me or 
given it any attention, with whom its most serious 
part, that is, its reasoning from the Christian faith 
and the Holy Bible, has no force, because he does 
not admit them to be true — I have something special 
to say to him. I have not until now directly 
addressed you, but seldom have you been out of my 
thoughts, or, pardon me for what may seem to you 
impertinent or arrogant, out of my loving anxiety. 
For we are living together in this strange world, 
with very sublime possibilities at least, before and 
after us all. 

And then I have the sympathy with you of all 
seekers after truth. In this I doubt not you may be 
sincere in certain directions of search. But this very 
«3 r mpathy requires me to be very plain with you, and 
to say that I do not believe you are such honest 
seekers in the highest sense and as regards the most 
important subjects of thought. Our so much 
opposed conclusions require this judgment of one 
another. For we will agree that absolute truth has 
such affinity for man seeking it that he will never 
reject anything which is fully presented to his mind 
and is true, except as some perversity of will misleads 
him from approval of it. This is what you think of 
me, and what both of us think of some obstinate 
bigot. And yet in a fair sense we can call such a one 
honest and sincere. 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 271 

One whom we all agree to have been at least a 
man who thought profoundly upon human life, has 
said that " men love darkness rather than light 
because their deeds are evil." May not you be 
affected by this aversion from truth in matters that 
involve, not physics or metaphysics, but our conduct 
towards our fellow-men and our at least possible duty 
to a " Supreme Being " ? Thus I do account for 
your failure to seek and achieve the truth of religion. 

And so while I have been through all these pages 
reasoning for a certain conclusion with those who, 
like me, take " the Word of God " as we believe it 
given to us in the Church of Jesus Christ, for certain 
truth, I would remind you that some parts of this 
argument are just as forcible for you who decline that 
authority. Thus I think I have made it clear to all 
that the idea of a " reign of law " is a mere assump- 
tion. I, therefore, challenge you to dismiss it, as 
you love truth and as you would decline any unproved 
postulate. Or if there be such proof yet possible, 
show it to me; for I also love truth and will gladly 
abandon my position if fairly disproved. 

But beyond this I invite you for the love of truth 
to examine anew whether the Christian faith is not 
truth. And I offer as a sufficient reason for this 
task, the frightful unmeaningness of ourselves and of 
all else that exists, unless there is some true religion. 
Why should we exercise our reason upon anything 
when we know no raison d'etre for ourselves? You 
ask a " reason why " for everything around us 
But really can you be content to give no thought to 



272 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

the question how and why you and your fellow-men 
exist to think at all ? Can you be so indifferent to 
it that when most men around you believe that they 
have found a great answer to this as the greatest of 
questions, and have found in that answer the greatest 
sentiments and motives of action now, you will pay 
no attention to any one who offers to show you this ; 
that you will smile at such thoughts as not worth 
thinking, and so foolish that they must be false 
without your investigation? Indeed, if this be a 
foolish use of thought, how silly it must be to study 
the habits of birds or anything in " Nature," except 
for the low uses of mere money-making ? Why 
then should a man of any nobleness of spirit care to 
live at all ? 

But look at the Christian idea : not that feeble and 
timid shadow of it, which alone your fellow-natural- 
ists who are Christians will probably ever venture to 
show you, but the real thing with its own force, if it 
has any; its answer to the question, " Why do I and 
all else exist ? " There is a most good and glorious 
Person, invisible to us, but vastly greater than the 
greatest man or all of us men together. We and all 
else but He are, and are what we are, simply 
because He wishes it. He is love, and therefore 
wishes everything that He has made to be good and 
beautiful ; and that everything to which He has 
given sensibility should have unbroken happiness. 
Some of these creatures are spiritual, that is persons, 
with a likeness to Himself so far as to be able to will 
and to love. Their greatness and felicity lie in 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 273 

having their will and love accord with His. If it 
does not so accord, then ensue to them only dishonor 
and unhappiness. 

Among the personal creatures of the Lord God, 
mankind fell into this evil will, and their deformity 
and unhappiness have even invaded the beautiful order 
of the innocent material world in which they live. 
Yet unlike that pitiless " Nature " which you put 
in the supreme place of a " Father Who is in 
Heaven," and which has nothing but unrelenting 
punishment for sinners, He whose loving will is the 
life of all, meets this great ruin with a great salva- 
tion. With amazing and most touching details of 
mercy and grace, He provides that all mankind may 
regain their life of perfect love of Him and of one 
another, and have for their immortal residence a 
" new Heavens and new Earth/' without the wounds 
and scars of this unhappy world. And yet the evil 
will of some can (because by the Omnipotent Will 
theirs has been made a real will of choice), and will 
persist in being evil and in refusing to be made good 
and happy, whether this perverseness take the form 
of mere neglect, or add to it a denial of the truth that 
God reigns over all and has sent His Son to be the 
Saviour of the world. But, however this may affect 
such unhappy creatures in the end, the Blessed and 
Only Potentate will do His good pleasure perfectly 
and forever more. 

Now, first, is it not better to know the actual pur- 
pose of our being than to be ignorant and indifferent 
about it ? Is not this so even if we are eager to pur- 



274 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

sue some other kind of knowledge ? Is it not worth 
while to take every means of learning whether this 
Christian faith is not the true account of it? Of 
course I do not mean by this such a searching for argu- 
ments against it, as a man might make under pretence 
of enquiry when he had resolved beforehand that 
nothing could convince him. That might be a terrible 
crime against bis own destiny and a silly outrage 
upon a very great Person. Would it not be an un- 
utterable shame to find out when too late, that after 
all it was true, and had been not only neglected, but 
scorned as a superstitious fiction ? 

Only compare this Christian theory of human life 
with your doctrine of " the whole duty of man," as 
I shall now declare it ; for to reject the one is really 
to accept the other, viz.: That we live in the midst, 
and as parts, of a vast machine which exists somehow, 
whether it ever really began or not; that it is per- 
fect in all its parts and movements, and that we can 
be and ought to be always finding out some of its 
invariable "laws"; that to exist and do this for 
three-score and ten years, perhaps less, possibly a 
little more, is all that the most favored of men can 
understand as their reason for existing. 

Now, does that seem to you worthy of the 

— "being of large discourse— looking before and after"? 

Even this discovery of new " laws of Nature " can- 
not employ one man in a hundred. And what will 
even these exist for, when all those " laws " are dis- 
covered? Will that consummation of knowledge be 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 275 

a signal for the extinction of mankind? Or if that 
be immeasurably distant in the future, so in propor- 
tion must our present knowledge be small, feeble and 
uncertain ; unworthy to be applied to these great 
questions of religion. No; as compared with his 
idea who imagines himself (if you will) made for such 
a Divine passion of devotion to His Maker as I have 
described, yours is a very low and dull hypothesis. 
It is alike for the highest as well as the lowest of 
our race, in substance 

— "to draw nutrition, propagate, and rot." 

If it is the truth, it is better than any contradiction 
of it. But if not true, and you refuse to find the 
absolute Divine truth in religion, what then ? 

But I should trifle with you and mislead you if I 
only asked you thus to find truth by your own 
thoughts. There is something much more certain 
and complete. God has spoken it to us directly in 
words. You may say that I require you to submit 
to " authority." Yes, I invite you, as I rejoice in 
enjoying it myself, to find truth in the " authority " 
of il Our Father Who is in Heaven." Begin with 
reading the four Holy Gospels, where you will find 
the words as far removed from human ambition or 
dictation as they ever are, and with a simplicity 
which even Mr. Darwin cannot surpass. I believe 
that if you follow this beginning candidly, it will 
lead you on to see that u Nature " is a false deity, 
and its " laws " the fictions of a superstition ; to 
adore the Holy Trinity of the Christian faith as the 



276 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

One True God, and in the Divine society of men 
which He has established for our good, to find Him 
your light and your salvation. 

My last words are for my earnest fellow-Chris- 
tians who are interested in the " Science " of the day 
and accustomed to use its language, and who admit 
its conclusions as ascertained verities by which we 
must adjust our previous impressions of the meaning 
of the Word of God. You and I have a common 
interest and affection that far exceeds in value the 
scientific knowledge, estimate that as high as we 
may. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism? 
which is a sacred profession of that Lord and faith, 
and of the union of our hearts in the Church. Let 
us decide this question first upon that common 
ground of ours ; after that let any other interest be 
heard in argument. Let us begin by trying it by 
these highest tests of truth. What will most honor 
Him " by Whom all things were made, and Who for 
us men and for our salvation came down from 
Heaven"? What will tend most to draw all our 
fellow-men into this faith and salvation ? What 
will most make us all see God now and love Him 
most? 

One fact and " ascertained verity " is that Our 
Lord is coming to judge the world, no one knows 
how soon. What view of that Cosmos will most 
promote a loving looking for Him ? Will He then 
" find faith upon the earth " ? He has asked that 
question. Is there not danger that our ambition to 
know so much of the inferior things without taking 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 277 

care for faith, is solving the mystery of His question 
by this very sacrifice of our loving faith to this cold 
and unspiritual " Science n ? What will it profit us, 
or relieve our shame and grief at having helped on 
that result, that we have gained the whole world of 
that knowledge, if when we really come to know 
all, we find that we thus sacrificed the highest truth? 

Therefore, I entreat you to consider and reconsider 
this well. Probably you have never before had it 
presented to you in this way. You may have been 
only impatient and indignant with those who said 
that Science was an enemy of Faith. But were they 
altogether so unreasonable ? Perhaps, if they gave 
no reasons, theirs was yet a strong conviction fixed 
upon the grounds now set forth in this book. 
Eefute them if they are wrong, or if upon this study 
you find them right, join with us heartily in that 
truth, cost what it may. If I am partly right but 
partly wrong, show that ; or if my arguments and 
apprehensions are all wrong, prove that. The oppos- 
ing truth will then come out the clearer, and true 
faith in God be the stronger for clearing up these 
troubles of other minds. But, again I implore, if you 
do begin to see that you and all our admired leaders 
of opinion in this have entered upon a deviation from 
truth and a tendency most dangerous to the souls of 
all men ; for God's sake and all these souls' sakes, 
leave it now, no matter how great names and influ- 
ences detain you, or how weak and unknown until 
now is this voice of remonstrance. 

You may think that you are indeed to be Chris- 
24 



278 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

tians in all that is especially religious, but that for 
science you must have with all the scientific, many 
of whom have no Christian faith, some " common 
ground," which can only be that of " Natural law " 
and its " reign " (no matter how questionable the 
relations of that notion to faith). But is not this a 
mistake? In other matters, perhaps, a man may 
thus distinguish his different " capacities." He may 
say, " I will do one thing and have one association 
in my capacity of citizen, and others in that of scholar." 
But does not my religion require the whole man and 
all my time ; other things only as subordinate parts 
of that ? Are not its sympathies and fellowship our 
sole and sufficient union with fellow-men, except so 
far as any other association may accord perfectly 
with that, and be subject to its interests and prin- 
ciples; so that nothing of them is to be conceded, 
suppressed or silenced even for a time, in order to 
join with other men in promoting these other pur- 
poses? 

One thing which makes the Church of God so 
feeble and slow in its conquest of all this world to 
Our Lord, is this modern notion of its members some- 
times acting in other " capacities," as if the social 
man, the political man or the intelligent man were 
for the time some one else than the Christian man, 
or could then i( waive " his character as this last to 
" meet on common ground " with his neighbor or 
fellow-citizen who was not a Christian. This ques- 
tionable tendency is much boasted of as the wise and 
honorable liberality of our age. But has it not been 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 279 

allowed at least scope enough in society, in schools 
for the young, and in politics, without exacting of a 
" son of the Lord Almighty " that to study geology 
and " biology " he shall meet those who do not 
believe the Word of God " on common ground " by 
expelling from his expressions and thoughts for the 
time, the very highest truth ? 

I would that we might all now finally reconsider 
these words in studying certain words which are 
truth itself. They are not those of Moses with any 
supposed " limited range of information about 
physical facts." They do not at all belong to the im- 
perfect truth of the Old Testament, and are not even 
words of the Lord's Apostles as moved by the Holy 
Ghost. They are His own utterance, the farthest 
removed from mysteries and figures which are to be 
explained by later knowledge. They are the most 
simple, the most practical, in the daily use of the 
Christian child as well as of the wisest man who 
prays, and they are uttered in every service of a 
hundred thousand churches. I appeal to all of you 
as you believe in Him Who said to us, " When ye 
pray say " these words, whether the thought of 
11 the Eeign of God " is not in all their spirit, and 
whether that of the "reign of law" is not contrary 
to it. 

"Our Father Who art in Heaven" [the beginning 
and end of our life ; a Person Whom we love and 
Who loves us ; and as this love is our first desire, so 
our first request of Him is] Sallowed be Thy Name. 
[It is the greatest of desires and delights to us to 



280 THE BEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

behold His exceeding Power and Beauty and say 
" All glory be to Thee Almighty God Our Heavenly 
Father."] Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on 
earth as it is done in Heaven. [Sis Kingdom, His 
reign ! He is the Great King. How is His Kingdom 
yet to come ? By the victory of His love in the 
complete redemption of mankind, but also, and as a 
part of this, in the joyful acknowledgment of that 
power and reign in all things, as the other words 
also declare it, " Thy Will be done on Earth," and 
known as so done, "as it is in Heaven," where God 
is All in All to every soul.] Give us this day our 
daily bread ; [It is also a part of our rightful desire 
and of His Will and Power (which we have already 
prayed might have effect), that we should have all 
that is needful for our present life ; and, what is yet 
more happy, should receive it all directly from His 
hand. But then to think how we have fallen from 
man's first estate of knowing and loving Him in 
everything! So that we have as great need of this 
pardon,] Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those 
who trespass against us. [We dare not and we would 
not ask this unless we have the true penitence which 
forgives the little wrongs which we do another ; for 
our estrangement from Divine love has made us 
selfish and unjust, and impatience and revenge for 
these would impel us farther from Thy Will and 
Law, that each of us should love his neighbor as- 
himself. Thus too, as sins are our greatest calamities, 
and there are wicked spirits who led in their rebel- 
lion against Thee by one most powerful, are our 



SUGGESTIONS AND REMONSTRANCES. 281 

greatest enemies by tempting us to sin, so we pray,} 
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil 
one. [And so we come to what is the end, as it was 
the beginning of our prayer, even the Will and Glory 
of God.] For Thine is the Kingdom and the 
Power and the Glory forever and ever. [The 
Eeign of God, alone and always: the Power, as 
much, as immediate, now, as in the beginning. The 
Glory of that irresistible Will of Love in all the 
immortal future which we shall enjoy without pain, 
without disappointment, without fear and without 
fault.] 

"For Thine is the Kingdom ": is that " the reign of 
law " ? Away with this cold and feeble fiction which 
hides the truth of all truths ! Let that be always in 
sight. Let there be no moment of time in which we 
do not hear that last and greatest voice of Divine 
prophecy, and join in it as the eternal chorus : 

"And HE shall EEIGN forever and ever! " 



282 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW.* 



APPENDIX A. 

METAPHYSICS :. ITS VALUE AND INFLUENCE AS TO QUES- 
TIONS OF RELIGION, AND OF DUTY TO GOD AND MAN, 

IN this investigation, I do indeed allow little or no 
value to Metaphysics, but treat it rather as an 
impertinence in questions like these, hindering the 
attainment of truth. I beg the candid attention of 
many devout and thoughtful persons to whom this 
will at first seem very unreasonable, while I state 
my reasons for it. 

It is contrary to the method of the modern apolo- 
gists who pass for the more profound and wise. In 
fact, whoever neglects the metaphysical arguments 
is supposed by this " public opinion " to be suffi- 
ciently answered in being himself neglected as 
incapable of doing any service to Christian truth. 
And whoever directly censures it is only noticed as 
a stupid bigot and a greater enemy to that truth 
than the infidel. In a real search for truth this is 
not wise or candid. The Christian " philosopher " 
ought to require that it be first proved that Meta- 
physics is any such valuable element (or process) of 
religious truth ; and still more, that it is such a 
foundation of true faith as is so much assumed. 
Even if once convinced of it himself, he ought to 
follow with candor any re-examination of the ques- 
tion by the Word of God and our best reason, which 
is undertaken by those who question that postulate. 



METAPHYSICS. 283 



As the assumption is strong in the long-continued 
acquiescence of writers of greatest authority, I freely 
admit that I am bound to set forth more fully than 
in the text why I reject it. But surely either these 
reasons ought to be met and distinctly refuted, or 
metaphysical discussions should be withdrawn from 
all our books "for the defence and confirmation of 
the Gospel." Before proceeding to those reasons I 
would justify myself to some who may question 
whether the assumption controverted is made, or at 
least so as to be important, by citing some instances 
as representing what is general among the more 
famous Christian writers of this age in our mother 
country, and public journals which set the fashion 
of opinion in our own. 

Sir W. Hamilton as the metaphysician of orthodox 
faith, and of greatest influence in our present Eng- 
lish-speaking thought, affirms positively in more 
than one passage and change of phraseology, that 
" Theology is wholly dependent on Psychology," 
(which he uses as equivalent to Metaphysics, though 
he sometimes distinguishes it as, together with 
"Ontology," making up that total.) Then in the 
interesting volume called "Faith and Free Thought," 
published some years ago by the " Christian Evidence 
Society," of England, we have first a discourse by 
Prof. Mozley to show that we must be metaphysical 
to have Christian faith. As he expresses it in one 
place: "Even the Bible can no more be understood 
without the aid of these great metaphysical ideas 
than it can be without grammar." [I am not now 



284 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

enquiring into the truth of this statement (that will 
come later), but only showing what such writers 
say.] Dean Merivale makes the same assumption 
in substance in his singular essay in the same 
volume, upon "the Contrast between Pagan and 
Christian Society." 

Even Dean Mansel in his many ways admirable 
volume upon " The Limits of Eeligious Thought," 
which was suggested by the danger of which I speak, 
and was meant to expose it, is too much under these 
intellectual illusions to escape the mischief entirely 
himself. Of this his critics and opposers took most 
annoying advantage. He plays with the fascinating 
deceits of religious metaphysics in such a longing 
way, that he can hardly defend himself against the 
charge of admitting, that man cannot "know God, 
and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." 

For our side of the Atlantic, and as showing the 
prevailing drift of opinion here, I may note first, 
that in these questions, whatever has most authority 
in England has scarcely less with us. So also not 
very long ago I saw in the " Independent," a relig- 
ious newspaper of wide circulation and influence, an 
article in which a writer of no little research and 
force, admits with regret the decline of Christian 
faith among reading people, and concludes that the 
only hope of its restoration is in a new " ontology." 
An instance in some respects even more to the 
purpose is that so intelligent a defender of Christian 
truth as the late Prof. Bledsoe, in many ways our 
most profound philosopher, argues to the same effect, 



METAPHYSICS. 285 

and even (as I have cited Prof. Mozley above,) insists 
upon every man being a metaphysician malgre lui. 
(See " Southern Keview," Art. "English Positivism/') 

Now nothing strikes one who tries to study all 
metaphysics fairly, or at least to get a general 
knowledge of it, more than its contradictions and 
reciprocal condemnations. If he has set out to be a 
zealous partisan of some one "school," the task is 
much easier. He must then indeed pretend to 
understand many words and distinctions which really 
convey no meaning to his mind. After a while he 
will really believe that he does understand them. 
But by sticking to the general method of believing 
that all which his master teaches must be transcen- 
dent truth, and that all from whom he differs have 
failed to receive that truth from lack of intellectual 
force or from mere prejudice, he gets on quite 
smoothly. If, however, he is free and candid enough 
to seek for the truth from all the metaphysicians 
alike, then for one thing at least he is bewildered, 
not only by what is unintelligible in each of them, 
but by their reciprocal contradictions. 

In this so-called science there has been no progress 
of knowledge, no advance from its beginnings, 
gradually eliminating the false and clearing up the 
doubtful. There is no great residuum of agreed and 
demonstrated truth after you have discarded mere 
individual opinions. There is not a single so-called 
" principle " of metaphysics which is not denied by 
some one of great name among these philosophers. 
There is nothing which is not still left in doubt for 



286 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

learners. There is no acknowledged umpire of the 
disputes. In our natural sciences there is some- 
thing which passes for authority in the consent of 
writers of our own time. But none of the questions 
of metaphysics are ever so disposed of that they 
cease to be questions. What has been allowed on 
all hands in one age it may indeed become the 
fashion of the next to dismiss as unworthy of atten- 
tion. Yet after a while it reappears as the trium- 
phant truth, either under a new name as a great 
discovery, or in the pomp of a banished king restored 
by the devoted loyalty of new champions. Any 
extensive reading of metaphysics conducts one again 
and again through these processes, with such com- 
plications of writers and schools, and such various 
combinations of what were before considered essen- 
tially opposite doctrines, and such shouts of assured 
and final victory of each party in turn, that honest 
students are worn out with confusion and loss of 
connected thought. 

And there are the like contradictions of fact as 
well as of opinion. For instance, there ought to be 
no question of what the famous philosophers taught, 
whose books have been in all scholars' hands for 
ages, and whose opinions are just what other thinking 
men have been ever since ranging themselves for or 
against. Yet there are quite different accounts given 
of those opinions, not by the misrepresentations of 
adversaries, but by the statements of admirers. 
That would be a curious book which would give all 
the doctrines of Plato as stated by different Pla- 
tonists. 



METAPHYSICS. 287 



A later instance, and one even more connected 
with our present investigation, is that of Des Cartes, 
one of the greatest of thinkers and of those who 
really influence the thoughts of other men now. 
" The History of Philosophy " by Kuno Fischer, 
which is the authority in such matters followed by 
our "American Cyclopedia," to which four-fifths of 
our people would go for information with entire 
confidence, says that the doctrines of Des Cartes, 
and of his great follower Malebranche, are those 
which Spinoza followed directly to all his conclu- 
sions. Now both of the former were devout believers 
in Our Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of all 
mankind, and would entertain no opinion for a 
moment which they could not hold along with that 
the highest truth. On the other hand Spinoza 
fancied that he proved that there was no God, that 
that was only a word for a huge "nature," that 
there was no real sin, and thus no such person as 
the Saviour. 

I cannot conceive of two sets of opinions more 
opposed than, on the one hand, the profound and 
devout speculations of the two French Christians 
who saw the person and power of God in everything, 
and on the other, the blind pantheism of Spinoz^a, 
which sees Him in nothing. If we do not at first 
see this clearly, we may come to do so by setting in 
contrast those most sublime words which begin St. 
John's gospel, and which the Christians could use as 
their formula of thought (and adoration), with this 
travesty of them which would fairly state the Pan- 



288 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

theist notion : " In the beginning was the world 
(xovfios), and the world was with God, and the world 
was God." It is just such a sacrilegious inversion of 
meaning when the followers of Spinoza quote St. 
Paul as in favor of their outright denial of God: "In 
Him we live and move and have our being." Their 
false notion and this great truth are exclusive con- 
tradictions of one another. 

Even the great philosopher of our own race and 
language has not escaped this treatment. We have 
all taken for granted that Bacon was so wise in 
thought, and so powerful and beautiful in the ex- 
pression of it, that we knew what he meant by 
"induction," and were sure that it was the true 
method of physical science. Yet our metaphysicians 
now fall into controversy over this very matter, and 
as to what his real method was. It is a powerful 
illustration of the fascinations and illusions of such 
reasonings that even he who speaks of the barren- 
ness of metaphysics and calls Plato a sophist, does 
not quite escape them. And now Mr. Huxley decries 
Bacon and his services to science, with a conscious- 
ness of his own departing from induction and reliance 
upon metaphysical imagination for the new science, 
as well as from the instinctive aversion of his 
wnreligious method of thinking to that of the devout 
philosopher. 

The speculations of metaphysics are indeed very 
attractive to ingenious minds. Such severe abstrac- 
tions do strengthen the intellect in some directions, 
and may conduct to valuable truth in some matters. 



METAPHYSICS. 289 



But experience shows that upon the whole this is a 
very doubtful process for adding to any real know- 
ledge. If this were all, it might still pass for a 
harmless amusement of mere men of books, or even 
of men of action in their times of necessary rest. 
But it always (whether from the very nature of all 
its questions, or by some dangerous fascination of 
the more vigorous minds,) in fact works its w r ay into 
questions of religion, and offers itself to give men 
knowledge of God. And then, as all experience 
shows, and as we might wisely judge from the 
nature of things, and as we do know more surely 
still by the admonition of the Blessed One Himself, 
it only confuses what we know already as Christians, 
and conducts us away from the highest truth. 

Yet, as we have seen before, learned Christian 
writers tell us all, that what we all \v r ant to re-estab- 
lish waning faith is still more of this " ontology," 
etc. Thus, even Prof. Mozley confounds great 
spiritual truth of which God informs us directly, 
with the unfruitful and absurd ambition of men to 
construct a human science of this truth ; to compre- 
hend the absolute ; to measure in their thought the 
unmeasurable, to analyze what is absolutely simple, 
and to advance by their reasonings even beyond 
that many-sided vastness of which they can never 
see more than the side which is at the time nearest 
to them. This is what they do, when, instead of 
receiving direct from Him who gives and who is all 
truth, the thought of the Infinite, and of the Be- 
ginning, they set to work upon it as a little raw 
25 



290 THE IiEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

material from which they are to digest and to ex- 
pand a " science/' Prof. Mozley's own illustration 
about "grammar" is an illustration of his own mis- 
take. It implies that no man can read the Holy 
Bible with understanding unless he holds a book of 
technical grammar in the other hand, and labori- 
ously applies its artificial terms and rales to each 
sentence of that Word of God. The diversion of 
thought and sterility of spiritual good which would 
result from such a process, is some illustration, 
though inadequate, of the effect of metaphysics upon 
religious thought. 

I cannot myself see what place it allows to the 
knowledge of God given us directly by Himself in 
His Word. That Word includes, first, the primary 
converse of the Father with man, and its tradition 
through all ages since; secondly, God the Son, the 
Eternal Word by prophets or in human Person, and 
in His Church ; and thirdly, the Holy Scriptures 
living in the Church by God the Holy Ghost " lead- 
ing into all truth." If that Word is inferior to the 
Metaphysics, of what use is it ? If superior and 
more full, including all that can be learned by the 
other, why not use it alone? If the Divine Word is 
only supplemental to the other (as seems to be the 
theory of the Christian metaphysicians so far as 
they have any,) why does not the former acknow- 
ledge the latter as antecedent and of authority ? Or 
how can this philosophical " ontology" be the 
primary knowledge of God, of which His Word is 
only the supplement, while the former is still a 



METAPHYSICS. 291 



matter of research, and most indefinitely incomplete, 
as its champions themselves will say, and the latter 
is finished ? 

Or, taking the only remaining alternative, if the 
Word of God be the primary knowledge of Him, and 
the other the necessary complement, then we should 
first exhaust that before proceeding to our religious 
" ontology." No man has yet done that. He who 
thinks he has, casts the greatest and unjust reproach 
upon it as defective. So indeed does the whole 
assumption of getting knowledge in our religion 
from metaphysics. Certainly all later researches 
should start from the Word of G-od as the first, the 
plain, and the undisputed truth, and discard any 
subsequent apparent discovery which did not accord 
with that : w T hich is the exact reverse of all actual 
metaphysical reasonings in religion. 

If we were truly candid the whole matter would 
be cleared of misapprehension by attention to the 
just comparison w 7 hich has been so often used of a 
little child who, being told by his most wise and 
loving father of that father's doings and feelings so 
far as they anyways concerned him, and as far as he 
could understand them — some of them things done 
before he was born — should decline to believe all this 
upon the simple information, and set to work by his 
own observations, and by reflections upon his own 
ways, " to lay a foundation of belief" * in the father's 
information, or at least to "verify"* those state- 
ments. Such a performance of the child would 

*These are some of the phrases of metaphysicians about this. 



292 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

make us smile. But in every point of contrast the 
" Father in Heaven " is vastly more above man in 
giving him knowledge of Himself than any of us is 
above this infant child. 

Or suppose we compare it to a number of such 
young children talking with one another : one say- 
ing to his playfellow : " Father tells me that the 
sun there is larger than all the world we live in • 
that it remains still w r hile we are moving swiftly as 
if on the rim of a great wheel ; that the world is 
such a great ball turning clear around from one 
morning to another, — can you believe it?" "No," 
says the other, " for I see the sun rise and travel 
through the sky every day. I walk on the ground 
which is flat. But then father says he can explain 
all this and make us see that he is right ; and so he 
talks away. But after all the sun does move and 
the world is flat. Still let us try and see if he can 
be right. Let us start and go right west as far as- 
we can to-day, and to where the sun sets behind that 
hill, and see whether when we get near it it is 
standing still, and whether the world is round or 
flat." Then these young persons having by this 
experiment found nothing to " verify " their fathers' 
words, fall back upon what "reason " teaches them. 

" God's Word written " speaks to us of all things 
Divine, always in the simple and direct way. It 
takes for granted that when it tells any man about 
God, whether ignorant or learned, with just a little 
intelligence, or with the most powerful mind He 
ever gives one of us, he knows what it means with- 



METAPHYSICS. 293 



out any metaphysical reasoning about the " me " 
aud the "not me," etc.; that when it tells him that 
God created all things, he can and ought to receive 
that knowledge fully without any ponderings and 
questionings concerning " causation." It is not at 
all relevant or necessary for us now to take part in 
the philosophic wars about "innate (or co?i-nate) 
ideas.'' The fact is enough for us that a " man that 
has never been taught letters," or a little child, can 
receive this knowledge of God at once from Himself; 
while he who will not do this, but insists upon first 
being a student of ontologies, etc. — even if he be a 
Christian to begin with — climbs up to the same truth 
in a weary and bewildered way, or perhaps ends as a 
dark doubter, such as certainly many of the most 
acute metaphysicians have been and are. 

This shows further how utterly mistaken are 
those champions of faith who maintain that a man 
cannot have religious thought except by being meta- 
physical. Their own ingenuity has enticed them 
into a juggle of words which confound our simple 
and direct assent to God's Word with abstruse 
reasonings about fl consciousness " and " causation." 
These last, whether true or not, are a few men's 
elaborations. The other is a universal fact, as well 
known (and even better) to the laborer as to the 
student. Could not Cowper's weaver use his eye- 
sight without knowing and accepting the undulatory 
theory of light? No less could he believe without 
an abstruse theory of belief. To say then that an 
ignorant man may at once believe God's words, but 



294 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

that the intelligent must first "lay the foundation of 
belief" by ontology, etc., is its own refutation. For 
certainly then he who at first knows the less knows 
the more. He at once attains knowledge, and that 
the very greatest, which the other achieves only 
later and by study. There is but one sense in which 
this paradox can be true. That is the sense of God's 
Word in its condemnation of this most subtle sort of 
human vanity (with all the other sorts), when men 
after having received knowledge of God from Him- 
self, instead of having the simple faith and love 
which should ensue, set to work to use this know- 
ledge as material for their intellectual ambition ; to 
seek by argument and controversy the very informa- 
tion already given them from Heaven. Thus " the 
world by wisdom knew not God. 11 

I would ask the Christian metaphysicians what 
else this does mean ? It does not stand alone, but 
among other just such Divine warnings against try- 
ing to gain religious truth by human reasoning. 
What do you make of our Lord's saying that the 
greatest, most profound, and precious truths are 
hidden " from the wise and prudent (<jo<piu\> xat (ruverwv, 
the philosophic and intellectual) and revealed unto 
babes" ? Did He mean merely the wrangling soph- 
ists ? But He does not say aoyiaTcbv, but ao<pa>v, as 
also St. Paul in the corresponding passages. Did He 
mean Plato and the Platonists and the other meta- 
physical theologists with their followers? Plainly 
to me. What a " blind guide," in the chief truth, 
would Plato be to us Christians now, and is he, so 



METAPHYSICS. 295 



far as upon whatever pretext we follow him, with 
all his charms of style and subtlety of speculation ( 

He supposes every man to love truth and good- 
ness for their own sake, and that it is merely from 
intellectual ignorance that he ever misses them. 
The Gospel of God shows us that this is false, and 
that if man sets forth from this vain imagination to 
discourse upon his duty and upon God, his foolish 
heart will only be darkened by his most ingenious 
studies j that what he needs first is to seek truth 
about these things in the exactly opposite direction, 
of penitence and a child's obedient faith in what God 
says to men in words. 

Perhaps some will say that what the Word of 
God itself w T arns us against in this, is the discarding 
of its authority entirely, or interpreting it only by 
men's reasonings. But this last is just what all 
religious metaphysics does. All the words of our 
Lord and of His Apostles assume and imply that it 
is easy for all men alike to receive the light of His 
truth in His Word; that this does not at all depend 
upon brilliancy of intelligence or subtlety of thought j 
on the contrary, that there is always danger that 
these will actually mislead us from that truth by 
exciting vanity and self-confidence, which all men 
have to overcome by penitence and humility. 

It is very unwise in a Christian believer to meet 
him who brings forward this truth, with reproaches 
that he is trying to degrade and blind the intelli- 
gence of man. The real, the only question for us is 
whether what has been said of humbly receiving the 



296 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

Word of God, instead of subjecting it to our intellec- 
tual self-sufficiency, is the truth — is some of that 
very supreme truth which God Himself in His love 
utters to us directly. If so, the only blindness and 
degradation is in refusing to receive it. Such truth 
it is, belonging with that other great truth which 
the Divine Light and Love so plainly imparts to us 
— that pride is one of man's greatest dangers and 
weaknesses, and humility toward God his blessing 
and honor, far beyond any knowledge real or sup- 
posed. 

Would not the "many wise " of St. Paul's day, if 
they were living now, have just this angry disdain of 
his reproofs, and call him in the clumsy jargon of 
some of our " liberals,'' an " obscurantist " ? But you 
may say that his censure meant such or such a mis- 
use of reason in religious questions ; that you contend 
only for its proper use. Just so, no doubt, they 
would have said. All the <?o<poi from Plato down are 
confident that they know the limits of reason, and 
do not go beyond them. And so, each in his way 
and degree, nullifies to himself the u wisdom that is 
from above." 

The Divine words which I have quoted and al- 
luded to are plain and full. They contain no excep- 
tions, they suggest no qualifications. They are in 
exact accord with the great principle of receiving 
the Kingdom of God as a little child. They imply 
the exclusion from religious faith of all philosophic 
speculation. This is a necessity of any " Word of 
God" as such, which must be made up of words 



METAPHYSICS. 297 



which tell their sense directly to men, and are not to 
be wrangled over by ingenious disputants, and so to 
mean whatever the latest and subtlest sophist says 
they mean. To admit that it is declared in God's 
Word and is true, that A. D. 30-60 " the world by 
wisdom knew not God," and yet contend that this 
agrees with the opinion that the metaphysicians 
from Pythagoras to Sir W. Hamilton are the neces- 
sary supports of Christian belief, is as " rationalistic " 
(and irrational) as the conclusions of any German 
mysticist. 

Nor is this less true if it be argued, that while men 
should believe the Divine Word directly, still meta- 
physics must be used to restore this faith when it is, 
as now, impaired in any way in men or societies. 
The evil began with deviating from simple reception 
of truth from God into abstract speculation. Why 
then should we seek to correct it by more of these 
speculations? Is not this merely to continue in the 
wrong direction of intellectual pride, instead of 
leaving that entirely and returning to obedient hu- 
mility toward God? Otherwise, why will we not 
have again only that uncertain and unsatisfactory 
result of human argument, which has already led us 
away from the authority of God's Word ? Shall we 
set the rock upon the quicksand ? Can the stream 
of faith, then, rise higher than its fountain of human 
reasoning? 

Without doubt, puzzling questions can be raised 
about this. Among such, it may be said that if we 
exclude reason from religion, we leave men no 



298 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

chance to escape from religious error maintained by- 
authority. And so, on the other hand, that God has 
made men to believe intelligently, and thus by 
reason to "prove all things " offered to their faith, 
so that they may " hold fast that which is good/ 
This last is true as a part of that Divine Word. But 
then, to say nothing of other sentences of Holy Writ 
already before us, its real sense must be according to 
the whole tenor of that Word, and cannot be against 
that, to the destruction of all faith. Nor is it con- 
trary to this other truth — that plain and simple 
people can believe the Word of God intelligently, 
and are more likely to do so than the ambitiously 
intellectual. 

We are to use our truth-loving good sense to 
ascertain how God has given us His Word ; and then 
we are to take that Word in its plain meaning and 
believe it. Simple love of truth will find no great 
difficulty in this, even if enticed away from it on the 
one side by any supposed authority which contends, 
in spite of history and common sense, that the 
words mean their opposites and always did ; or, on 
the other side, by another departure from the plain 
meaning, upon the pretence that our reason does not 
accord with that meaning. Obedient and reverent 
faith may sometimes have to say, " I do not under- 
stand/' but it will never say, " I will not believe." 

Suppose, however, that there are a few foolishly 
argumentative men, who have indulged in this intel- 
lectual dissipation until they have become such 
spiritual weaklings as to be incapable of plain, 



METAPHYSICS. 299 



rational faith, until they are first dosed with the 
poisonous drugs of religious metaphysics. Must 
these be forced upon those who are wholesome and 
heart}^ of soul enough to believe the Word of God 
with simplicity ? Yet this is just what our modern 
" aids to faith " do. I see in none of them a warn- 
ing to the morbid doubter that his want of faith is 
mental infirmity, nor any assurance to those of their 
readers who believe (and who are likely to be much 
the more in number) that their faith, which did not 
begin in metaphysics, is the healthy and vigorous 
action of man's soul. On the contrary, the doubter is 
probably flattered in his foolish self-reliance by the 
very means used to induce him to believe ; while the 
others are confused and weakened in their immediate 
faith by the writer's argument grounding it upon 
metaphysics. Therefore, those strong and clear 
words of our Lord and of His prophet-apostle 
include this in their censure of the blindness of" the 
wise and prudent." 



300 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 



APPENDIX B. 

THE METHOD AND RULES BY WHICH THIS EXAMINATION 
OF HOLY SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN MADE. 

I. npo note all distinct mentions of (a) Creation, 
JL (&) Providence (meaning by this the usual 
and uniform movements and successions in what we 
call " Nature," including life, whether human, 
animal or vegetable), (c) Miracles (i. e. all things not 
occurring in Providence as above, but striking the 
mind as swper-natural. This must include all fore- 
knowledge and prophecies of events when not 
derived from calculation or from observation of the 
past, as also all about angels and evil spirits, and 
everything communicated from God in word or 
vision to men, or to any one man, with the visions 
themselves ; also all about the fall and redemption of 
mankind, heaven, hell, and the eternal life to come.) 
(d) Prayer, as followed, or promised to be followed, 
by the obtaining of what a man has thus asked of 
God. 

2. To note all plain, incidental mentions of or allu- 
sions to the above particulars. Otherwise, we might 
miss seeing the most surprising and convincing foot- 
prints of truth in such fresh paths, not yet beaten 
into iron hardness by the tread of controversy. 

3. In case of doubt as to whether passages fairly 
belong to either of the above classes, rather to omit 
them, as they may describe a merely human act. 



HOW THIS EXAMINATION HA8 BEEN MADE. 301 

4. If it be only doubtful to which of two of these 
classes they may belong, to refer them to both such, 
but count them only once in the aggregate. 

5. To note the number of them under each head. 
This, of course, is not of much force by itself, but is 
suggestive and worthy of candid thought in our 
final conclusions, 

6. Especially to distinguish and examine any pas- 
sages which may have been thought to mean " laws 
•of Nature " or the like, or which have seemed to me 
of like force with such passages cited by others. 

7. To study how far these last are or are not evi- 
dently figures of speech. 

8. Also to note especially such as mention what 
we commonly call k< natural events,' , as done directly 
by Divine power and will. 

9. To study whether these can be considered figures 
of speech ; to compare them as such with the last- 
mentioned class (see 6), as to (a) their accord in 
literal or in figurative sense with other Scripture, or 
(b) with our usual understanding of language and 
our best reason, or (c) as to the comparative fre- 
quency or number of them. 

10. To observe as to any distinction made in Holy 
Scripture between Creation and subsequent acts of 
Divine power. 

11. To observe whether miracles are ever noted in 
Holy Writ as interpositions in a laws of. Nature," or 
anything of the kind. 

12. To notice whether or how the miracles are 
there distinguished from Providence. 

26 



302 the: reign of god not "the .reign of h&M" 

13. To examine as to how we are to consider the 
written Word, as related in its construction to the 
limits of human understanding (not merely of in- 
ferior minds, but as well of the greatest intellects) ; 
whether, e. g., what we may be disposed to construe 
in the sense of" laws of Nature " is not expressed as 
it is only in gracious accommodation to our imperfect 
minds, while that which tells of incessant and imme- 
diate Divine will and power is the absolute fact. 

14. Thus also to carefully observe every passage of 
Holy Writ which compares our knowledge as re- 
ceived by a " Word of God " with that which comes 
to us by our perception of the works of God and our 
own intellectual processes. Such passages will be 
found mainly of the following kinds : 1st, such as 
relate that God spoke to men with an audible voice ; 
2d, such as compare the "wisdom from above" with 
"man's wisdom"; and 3d, such as distinguish be- 
tween "Thus saith the Lord," and any other 
saying. 

15. To examine whether there be in God's Word 
any such form of speech, or any equivalent, or even 
traces, of the language commonly used by us about 
"Nature " and "laws." 

Certainly, if there be none such, it should go far 
with a candid Christian to dismiss those notions. 
Holy Scripture was indeed not meant to teach any 
" science," but it certainly does not contradict any 
truth. And any real truth, discovered by men after 
the Word of God came to them, would not contradict 
the simple sense of that Word. Such truth as a 



HOW THIS EXAMINATION HAS BEEN MADE. 303 



"reign of law," if truth it be, belonging to religion, 
would be found plainly enfolded in the Book of God, 
and readily wn-folded from it. 

If any one insist that it is the passages which 
declare the immediate power of God (see "8." as 
above) that are figurative, and those which are 
alleged as mentioning a "reign of law" (see " 6.") 
that are literal, it is necessary for us to decide this, 
as searching the Holy Scriptures to learn their 
meaning, and not to argue for opinions already 
formed. It is certainly a use of figurative language 
in the one case or the other. Now when God uses 
the language of men to speak to them, figures are 
used, not to conceal truth, but to exhibit it to them. 
We may be sure the figures are not used instead of 
the most literal words unless either human speech is 
unequal to the Divine mysteries taught, or by way of 
eloquence and poetry to stir our spiritual dullness 
and give us a better vision of the glory and beauty of 
heavenly things. Let us try this question by such 
rules of interpretation as follow from these principles. 
It is dangerous to truth to call any such a figure 
when it maybe literal, for then we might destroy 
the meaning of all Scripture and all real faith in any 
Word of God. It is, therefore, a true rule, established 
by consent of the wisest scholars, that the literal 
meaning is to be preferred whenever it would be 
the understanding of the words without explanation, 
unless special proof of the contrary can be shown. 

It is as natural to understand some expressions* 
figuratively as others literally. Thus, if I heard a 



304 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

person say, <; I am the door," "I am the vine," it 
would be the natural thing for us to understand him 
to mean, "I am as a door," &c, and it would seem 
strange to us to have it said that this meant that he 
was such a part of a house, or a climbing plant. 
Figurative language, as such, is as natural and as 
little likely to be mistaken in its true place as the 
literal. Yet, when words are used which arc not 
upon their face and in their first impression figur- 
ative, they are probably literal. Another such rule 
is that the literal language is more frequently used 
than any given figure. Another, that figures are not 
so likely to be used in prose and precept as in poetry 
or eloquence, or to appeal to our sentiments. 

There are two classes of sentences in Holy Scrip- 
ture, of which the one literally taken declares that 
God does all things in heaven and earth personally,, 
directly and mje&s&antly, by immediate will and 
power, while the other is quoted to show that this is 
not so, but that at Creation He set up "laws" and 
" forces " which continue that will which He had in 
the beginning, while He only intervenes in person 
with miracles. If these passages are rightly cited ta 
that effect, then those of the former class are all fig- 
urative ; but if they are literally true, then the others 
are figurative expressions. 

Observe then that according to the rules already 
given, it is the first class which are (1.) much the 
more numerous, (2.) intelligible at once in literal 
meaning, and naturally so understood by all men at 
first, and (3.) used in plain prose of precept and 



HOW THIS EXAMINATION HAS BEEN MADE. 305 

example; while the others are (1.) but very few in 
all, (2.) figurative any way even when cited to prove 
" natural law," and (3.) occur only in the poetical 
and rhetorical Scriptures. When we add that the 
former are used by our Lord the light of the world, 
to teach us how to behold God and understand His 
works, and the others are not in the New Testament 
at all, there seems to remain no candid doubt how 
we shall decide this question. 



306 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 



APPENDIX C. 

CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF EP. TO THE ROMANS, CHAP. I. 1, 
TO III. 10, AND 1 EP. TO COR. CHAPS. I. AND II. 

Neither of the two passages of St. Paul's Epistles 
here discussed together can be thoroughly examined 
without the other. I shall begin with that from the 
1 Epistle to the Corinthians, not only because it is 
earlier in date of writing, but because there is a pro- 
found connection of them in this order and in the 
occasions of their writing as touching the very 
questions now before us. 

When St. Paul came first to Corinth and founded 
that church, he came direct from Athens. There he 
had just had his famous encounter with the Greek 
philosophers. It so happened that it was some of the 
Epicureans and Stoics who made the formal chal- 
lenge to the Apostle to make a public exposition of 
his doctrine upon Mars Hill. None the less must 
we suppose that all the philosophies were repre- 
sented among his auditors there, and brought to his 
notice, even if never before, in the private discus- 
sions which followed thereupon. 

Thence, as we have seen, and with his thoughts 
full of what the intellectual leaders of all the Greeks 
held for <jo<pta — wisdom — the greatest things that 
men had ever thought out, or others could learn from 
these thinkers, he went straight, but a day or two's 
journey, to another city of Greece. There he stayed 



CRITICAL DISCUSSION. 307 

long, and gathered a church which was remarkable 
in several respects, immortally so as having ad- 
dressed to it two of the chief inspired Epistles. 
Corinth was not, like Athens, the incomparable 
centre of art and thought. It was rather busy and 
rich, and the centre of the Koman government of 
Greece. But still it was altogether a Greek city, 
penetrated by the same subtle and ambitious specu- 
lations which converged from all the Hellenic people 
upon Athens, and radiated again thence through 
them all. 

At Corinth, unlike some other Greek towns, the 
Christians were not made up mostly from Jewish 
families living there, but almost entirely of real 
Gentile Greeks. So these Epistles are not occupied 
with correcting the mistakes of Israelites about the 
Messiah and the Law, but with heathen vices and 
intellectual vanity, to which they were most' prone. 
This last had been the chief cause of the parties and 
schisms in the Church of Corinth which was the first 
occasion of the First Epistle. What St. Paul says of 
it we are now about to study with reference to some 
questions of our day. 

There are certain expressions in this Epistle which 
had a definite meaning, and contained allusions 
which to us and in our translation do not appear 
upon the face of the words. Such are <ro<pos, the 
philosopher or sage, and <ro<pia, philosophy, as if the 
reasonings of the various sects of philosophers were 
the chief, if not the only true, wisdom. Almost cer- 
tainly, these Greek words were familiar in this 



308 THE REIGN OF GOB NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

sense to St, Paul from his earliest studies. Without 
doubt, they were thus well known to "him after his 
visit to Athens and his long residence in Corinth. 
And in writing to the Corinthians afterwards, he 
would have known that they would so understand 
his use of the terms. All this philosophy of its 
various kinds, professed above all things to enlighten 
people with true thoughts of religion. Of this be 
takes notice at once. This would make it very in- 
teresting, were what he says only the judgment of 
that thoughtful Christian, that very wise and able 
preacher and prelate of the Church. But even this 
value of the passage is lost in its importance as what 
he wrote by inspiration of God, and as the Word of 
God to all lands and ages. 

He comes to this matter at once in the outset of 
the Epistle as soon as, after his loving greeting, he 
begins to speak of that " preaching " (or proclaiming) 
of our Lord's Gospel, to which all his life and labor 
was given. u For Christ sent me, not to baptize, but 
to preach the Gospel, not with philosophy of words, 
lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect. 
{The two things have no accord : this divine mes- 
sage of pardon by the oblation of Jesus Christ upon 
the cross, and the ambitious and self-confident specu- 
lations of all your Greek philosophers, which, so far 
from helping, would hide that truth from my 
hearers.] For the preaching of the Cross [the pro- 
clamation we make in our Lord's name of His dying 
to save sinners] is to them that perish foolishness 
[seems to those who are fond of these philosophies, 



CRITICAL DISCUSSION. 300 



quite opposed to them, and therefore a dull super- 
stition which they are too wise to believe in, and so 
they lose the divine and only salvation], but unto us 
which are saved [who abandon all such vain 
attempts to invent religious truth, and believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ] it is the power of God. For it Is 
written, [as it was foretold even by the prophets 
before our Lord], ' I will destroy the philosophy of 
the sages, and confound the intelligence of the intel- 
lectual \ Where is the philosopher? where is the 
writer ? where is the disputant of this world ? Hath 
not God convicted of folly the philosophy of this 
world? For after that in the wisdom of God [His 
eternal power and love mastering all things, even the 
perverse wills of men] the world by its [pretended] 
wisdom [or philosophy] knew not God, it pleased 
God by [what this vain and presumptuous philo- 
sophy called] the foolishness of His proclamation of 
grace, to save some who were really wise enough to 
believe and gratefully accept it." 

This translation presents the words to us simply 
as they must have been understood by the Christians 
of Corinth. It is, therefore, just what we want now, 
that we may decide whether it is true, as maintained 
by so many Christian scholars, that we ought to 
understand Christian doctrine according to Plato's or 
Aristotle's philosophy. We see that just the reverse 
is true — that we are not encouraged, that we are not 
permitted, that we are even strictly forbidden to do 
this. 

Within the next year, St. Paul visited Corinth 



310 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

again, and while there wrote the Epistle to the 
.Romans. We have every reason to think that the 
Church at the capital of the world was then one of 
the most intelligent of the Christian societies. 
While some of its members may have been of the 
Israelites residing in Rome, they are all addressed in 
the Greek language, and as if they were " Greeks." 
There are many proofs that Greek was the language 
of the Church of Rome in the Apostles' days, and for 
some time after. So these Roman Christians, being 
in the main Greeks, some by birth and almost all by 
language and education, we shall best understand St. 
Paul, in an epistle to them, as using the words of 
their language in the sense most familiar to them as 
such. 

It is a sort of continuation of his counsels to the 
Church in Corinth; his mind filled again, by re- 
visiting that city and people, with those deep 
thoughts of the dangers of Greek philosophy to wise 
faith and religion. But he now proceeds to declare 
to the Greeks at Rome how the great salvation of 
Christ Jesus was for all men alike — Jews or Greeks, 
under the shadow of the imperial palace or within it, 
or in the most distant provincial village, brought up 
in the law of Moses, or knowing until then only the 
religion of idols or of vague philosophy. 

Thus, after noble and beautiful salutations, he 
enters upon that subject at once, telling the Chris- 
tians at Rome that he felt it his duty to proclaim the 
great Gospel among them also — to Greeks as well as 
barbarous people — to the philosophical (co<poW) 



CRITICAL DISCUSSION. 3U 

as well as to the unintelligent (dvoifrocc). That 
Gospel is the Divine power for Greek as well as Jew. 
Then he proceeds to show how all mankind, though 
first innocent and having pure knowledge of God, 
fell into sin and lost the truth of religion ; which 
loss, so much repaired among the Israelites by the 
later Word of God by Moses and the prophets, had 
no such checks for its descending corruption among 
other nations. Yet this does not acquit them in the 
jndgment of God. 

As he proceeds to say (Rom. i. 19, &c), " Because 
some knowledge of God is manifest in them, for God 
hath shewed it unto them. For ever since the 
creation of the world, and that pure knowledge of 
Himself that He first gave to man when He made 
him in His own image, those invisible things of 
His, even his eternal power and Divinity, are clearly 
seen, being perceived (and recalled to thought) 
through the things that were made; so that they 
are not excused by their false religion from guilt 
toward Him, Because that when they knew God 
(knew Him at first fully, and even in the downward 
progress of losing this knowledge by disobedience, 
knew Him still in even the most corrupt religion by 
the thought of superhuman unseen power which 
commanded them to be better and purer than they 
chose to be) they glorified Him not as God (with 
devout love), neither were thankful, but became per- 
verse in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was 
darkened. Saying that they were philosophic (that 
is, even the more intellectual, to whom the rest 



312 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

looked up) they became fools, and changed the glory 
of the incorruptible God into an image like to cor- 
ruptible man (this was the actual worship of even 
Socrates and Plato), and to birds and four-footed 
beasts and creeping things. 

" Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, 
*fec, (to which sensual degradation these same philo- 
sophers seem to have been as indifferent as other 
people, assuming it to be natural and necessary), who 
changed the truth of God (that most exalted thought 
of religion) into a lie, and worshipped and adored the 
Creation ('Nature/ &c.) instead of the Creator. Who 
is blessed forever, Amen. For this cause (and as the 
evil tendency of all neglect of Him) God gave them 
up to vile affections, &c. (worse and more unnatural 
abuses of their physical life, in which the most rich 
and refined — the lovers of art and authors of inge- 
nious philosophy — were as much implicated as the 
ignorant and superstitious). And even as they gave 
no thought to retain God in their knowledge (to 
have a religion in which they thought of Him as to 
be supremely loved in holy life), God gave them over 
to a debased mind, to do things altogether unworthy 
of the life of man, being filled, " &c. (Here follow 
verses 29-32, that fearful description of the immoral 
life of all' the Gentile people, in which those especially 
u professing themselves to be wise," the Greek philo- 
sophers and their students, were among the most 
flagrant examples and those best Known to St. Paul 
.and his readers.) 

But now he turns to the other class of men, as if 



CRITICAL DISCUSSION. 813 

apostrophizing one of his Roman readers who had 
not been brought up in that great estrangement 
from God of the religion of idolatry, but in the light 
of Moses' law, and who had listened with approval 
to his account of the most of mankind, yet was him- 
self worldly and impenitent (II. 1, &c): — " Therefore 
thou art inexcusable, O man ! whosoever thou art that 
judgest ; for wherein thou judgest another, thou eon- 
demnest thyself. But we are sure that the judgment 
of God is according to truth against them which 
commit such things; . . . (6-16) who will render to 
every man according to his deeds. To them who by 
patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and 
honor and immortality — eternal life ; but unto them 
that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but 
obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath — trib- 
ulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that 
doeth evil; of the Jew (like you) first, and also of 
the Gentile — for there is no respect of persons with 
God — but glory, honor and peace to every man that 
worketh good; to the Jew first, (for he has had in 
the Old Testament earlier advantages for this) and 
also to the Greek (if he is penitent and pious), for 
there is no respect of persons with God. 

"For as many as have sinned without (a written) 
law (literally M lawlessly ") shall perish without law ; 
and as many as have sinned in (with knowledge 
-of) the law (written) shall be judged by that law. 
For not the hearers of the law are just before God, 
but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when 
(if, or if ever) the (heathen) nations, (not " Gen- 
27 



314 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

tiles," as individuals), which have not the law (writ- 
ten), do by nature (no written Word of God renew- 
ing for them the law of primitive religion) the very 
things contained in that law, these having not that 
law, are a law unto themselves (that is, the original 
knowledge of God and of man's .duty stills remains 
among them in a partial and indefinite way, in 
traditions and religious practice, and their political 
law as derived from these), who show (by these 
remains of virtue) the work of the law (the actual 
power of God's will as the law for men) written in 
their hearts (living in their very thoughts), their 
self-judgment also bearing witness in the day when 
God shall judge the world, and their thoughts then 
among themselves accusing or else excusing one 
another." 

It thus appears that this is not said of all men 
alike as knowing merely from their own thoughts 
all that they ought to do. What is said is expressly 
limited to the heathen nations, and as what will be 
disclosed by his thoughts and memory to each man 
of them in the day of Judgment. .Nor is this at all 
according to the notion of a "conscience" in each 
man's soul telling him infallibly what he ought to 
do; a notion found not at all in God's Word, but 
suggested in some of the old heathen philosophies 
and adopted fully in modern Christian philosophy. 

He then returns directly to the worldly Israelite 
whom he was before convicting of his equal need 
with the Pagans of salvation through the Lamb of 
God, and says, (vv. 17, 18)," Behold thou art called a 



CRITIC A Ji DISCUSSION. 315 



Jew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of* 
God, and knowest His will and approvest the things 
that are more excellent, being instructed out of the 

law (v. 23). Thou that makest thy boast 

of the law, through breaking of the law dishonorest 
thou God? f . . . (vv. 25-27). But if thou be a 
breaker of the law th}^ circumcision is made uncir- 
cumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision (should) 
keep the righteousness of the law (without reading 
God's will in His Word, actually do it; while thou 
readest but doest it not), shall not his uncircumcision 
be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncir- 
cumcision, which is by nature (where no written 
AVord of God renews the primitive religion) if it 
fulfill that law, judge thee, who by the letter and cir- 
cumcision dost transgress the law? . . . (Chap. iii. 
1). What advantage then hath the Jew? and what 
profit is there of circumcision ? Much every way, 
because that unto them were committed the oracles of 
God, (the later words of God repeating His will). . . . 
(vv. 9, 10). What then ? Are we (Jews) better 
(than the Gentiles)? No, in no wise: for we have 
before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are 
all under sin : As it is written, There is none right- 
eous : no, not one," etc. 

I have only space here to add to what needs, and 
I hope may yet receive a much fuller treatment, 
that these last powerful words (as in substance also 
those of Chap, i.) prove that those of Chap. ii. 14, 
26 and 27, can only be rightly understood, not as 
affirming that any Gentiles did in fact perform God's 



316 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

will as being "a law unto themselves"; but that 
even if they had, it would have been as they knew it 
by traces in their traditions and laws, of His first 
Word to man. 



"THE REIGN OP LAW." 817 



APPENDIX D. 

EXTRACTS FROM A REVIEW IN DETAIL OF A BOOK 
ENTITLED " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

(It has been impracticable to find room here for 
the whole of this review, which may appear at length 
in a later publication.) 

IT was a great task which the author set himself, 
viz: to show the people of our time that 
" Science V does not forbid us to have Christian faith. 
It would not be fair to censure any one merely for 
imperfect success in that undertaking. But if the 
real result were upon the whole to obscure the 
glorious vision of God in all things, no pains 
should be spared to expose this. The more the 
writer's name commanded readers and their ready 
.assent, the more the book was commended by those 
whose authority would carry it, and confidence in 
it, into the multitude of docile readers whom other- 
wise it would not reach, the more direct and com- 
plete should this criticism be. 

The book is much more easy and pleasant reading 
than some others upon like subjects. This is no 
■small element of influence. Some things are finely 
said, and even rise to eloquence of expression. In 
i{ illustrations " of the argument, entertaining infor- 
mation is sometimes given, and questions of physical 
science or political economy argued with much in- 



318 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

genuity. But as illustrations, what can they be worth 
when the} r illustrate nothing true ? 

Before examining the book in detail, I mention 
some cardinal errors that spoil it all. 1st. An in- 
correct and ambiguous use of the terms " law/' 
" laws," &c. 2d. An assumption that all which can 
exist or be an object of thought, is either " Matter " 
or " Mind." 3d. In a certain accord with this, the 
glorious Person of God, especially as in Himself love, 
and to be loved, is kept out of sight. 4th. Taking no 
notice of the way in which God has placed His 
Word among men. 5th. The author's favorite con- 
ception of God as being under a certain necessity 
from "Law" and its "Keign," and as in all that He 
does only wisely contriving and combining results 
in the use of eternal forces ; no more in fact than an 
immense man. 

The author of "The Eeign of Law," would 
probably say in answer to criticism under the 3d 
and 4th heads, that he had anticipated it in his 
preface to the first edition, postponing a chapter 
on "Eeign of Law in Christian Theology" be- 
cause he "shrunk from entering upon questions so 
profound, of such critical import, and so connected 
with religious controversy." Each of these is a 
reason why he should have "shrunk from" his 
present argument, which by its religious defects is 
in result irreligious. In the preface to the fifth 
edition he finally abandons the projected chapter, 
and admits that its^ absence is a very serious defect 
in the argument. This seems almost to disarm 
censure in advance. 



"THE REIGN OP LAW." 319 

But it is the readers, the ill effect upon them, and 
not the author, who are most to be considered. .Not 
that we complain of the want of this, other " chapter," 
which would probably have been as erroneous as the 
rest. The actual fatal defect is that in an attempted 
argument for Christian faith, which we do have, 
these and other faults pervading it all, put it among 
the books which upon the whole impair faith. 

The first chapter is entitled " Of the Supernatural." 
It is devoted to casting out this word from use. 
The argument, which is somewhat rambling and 
confused, is founded upon the mere false notion of a 
11 reign of law." According to it nothing is super- 
natural because everything is " natural." This 
mighty war, as between words, might be passed over 
without notice were that all. Though indeed if this 
author is right, we must recast many of the most 
valuable writings of modern times. Were it upon 
the verbal question only, I should rather agree with 
M. Guizot, that most unprejudiced and profound 
thinker, than with the Duke of Argyll. Let any 
one of my readers attempt to correct all his best 
reading by this decision of the latter (p. 50.) : li The 
truth is there is no such distinction between what 
we find in Nature and what we are called upon to 
believe in religion, as that which men pretend to 
draw between the Natural and Supernatural. It is 
a distinction purely artificial, arbitrary and unreal ; " 
and he will be surprised at the result. Go, reader, 
and revise by this canon what has been written by 
the wisest of men concerning faith in God, and see 



%W THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

what names you must insult, and what books you 
must mutilate and disfigure. 

But indeed it is not a mere matter of words. It 
is a precise inversion of the truth of religion. For 
instance, we are told (p. 30.) that " we must remem- 
ber that the language of Scripture nowhere draws, 
or seems even conscious of the distinction which 
modern philosophy draws so sharply between the 
Natural and the Supernatural. All the operations 
of Nature are spoken of as operations of the Divine 
Mind." Now we have just (Chaps. VII. and VIII.) 
been making a real and thorough examination of 
Holy Writ. And we have found that it " nowhere 
seems even conscious" of "Nature" or "the Natu- 
ral " at all. We might rather say that in it all 
things are described as Supernatural. 

In truth this writer is wandering in a " vicious 
circle "; beginning with the assumption of his cher- 
ished notion of a " reign of law," and with his 
inferences from it proceeding to prove what he 
really began with. His own personal belief in God's 
Word remains, and so he actually proceeds to fortify 
his arguments by classifying under this " reign of 
law " the most sublime mysteries of Divine Love ; 
as for instance, p. 51, "The Divine Mission of 
Christ," &c, and p. 52, '"It behoved Him,' etc. 
Whatever more there may be in such passages," &c. 
Wise faith is shocked at this, but must try to excuse 
it as of the habits of a false theology. 

Yet on the very same page he fancies himself 
looking down upon "all theologies" from a higher 



"THE RETGN OF LAW." 331 

point of view. And thus he discourses of them: "Per- 
haps it is not too much to say that the manifest 
decay which so many creeds and confessions are 
now suffering arises mainly from the degree in 
which at least the popular expositions of them dis- 
sociate the doctrines of Christianity from the 
analogy and course of Nature. There is no such 
severance in Scripture," etc., etc. 

On the contrary we have already seen that Holy 
Scripture knows nothing of " Nature " in his sense. 
But what does he mean by " creeds " and their 
"decay"? Is he speaking (which would be the only 
accurate use of the term) of those brief statements of 
"the faith once for all delivered to the" Church of God 
1800 years ago, and professed by all Christendom in 
those words with scarce any exception for at least 
1500 years? Does he at least include those creeds, 
without w 7 hich his words represent nothing worthy 
of notice? In what respect are these creeds now 
suffering any " manifest decay " ? How can they, 
being of that truth which can never grow old or 
pass away, as will this visible (i Nature" ? 

If he means that men's faith in the Divine truth 
decays because "popular expositions" of it do not 
proceed upon his method of referring all things to 
" Nature " and the " Eeign of Law 7 ," in this they 
follow the example of Holy Scripture. But just such 
references to the visible world aixmnd us in teaching 
religion as the Blessed Scriptures, and above all as 
Our Most Blessed Lord's example suggests to us, ar& 
quite common even in the less thoughtful " popular 



322 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

expositions." There is still a great deal of hearty 
faith left, and it is found most among those who 
know least about this scientific "Nature"; while its 
dangerous decay is to be seen among those who 
give most attention to that, and those who are 
most influenced by their ideas. 

"Chap. II. — Law, its Definitions." — This would 
seem at last to introduce us to the main argument. 
Yet it opens thus, not with definitions, but with a 
mere assumption of the very thing to be proved: 
"The Eeign of Law — is this then the reign under 
which we live? Yes, in a sense it is, there is no denying- 
it," etc., etc. But we are told next that u the men of 
Theology " (Christian believers ? and especially God's 
own ambassadors?) find something in it not favor- 
able to what they believe the highest truth. " They 
would erect a feeble barrier by defending the position 
that Science and Keligion may be and ought to be 
kept entirely separate," etc. In this at last he 
notices the just instinct by which those who value 
and are in a measure responsible for the religious 
faith of their countrymen, perceive in this notion of 
the "reign of law" an enemy to that faith. But 
even when they ask that it will not invade the truth 
which is in their special charge, he has no sympathy 
with them. On the contrary he makes merry over 
their anxieties, and predicts their failure upon the 
plausible ground that every truth has " a right of 
way" in every other region of Truth. So religious 
belief must be made to accord with the " science " of 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 323 

the time. " The endeavor to reconcile them is a 
necessity of the mind. We are right in thinking 
that if they are both indeed true, they can be recon- 
ciled/' etc. Not so. He is a very shallow thinker 
who does not know that all the really greatest 
truths baffle all our attempts to reconcile them ; 
which reminds us that God can tell man things too 
great for his comprehension. 

How do we know this " Theology,'' as the Duke 
of Argyll is pleased to name the Divine truth of 
religion ? By verbal communication from God. Is 
it then too much to ask that no sort or amount of 
such inferior knowledge as men can " by searching 
iind out," Shall be allowed to quality or interpret 
that which is absolutely true? And is this reconcil- 
ing to be all in that direction ? Or may I assert this 
" blessed right of way' 1 of my heavenly truth of 
religion to enter the domain of "Science" and 
dictate a change in some of its results? No one 
proposes that. In one place the author seems to 
admit that this must be allowed with the other 
claim. But when you look carefully at his sentence, 
there is no such right allowed to the truth that 
comesfrom Heaven ; only one sort of human discovery 
must exchange civilities with another. Thus: "It 
may be that some proud generalization of the schools 
is having its falsehood proved by" ( — what? — the 
most august- and perfect Word of God? No! — ) the 
violence it does to the deepest instincts of our spirit- 
ual nature. Now we do not obtain these "doctrines 
of religion " from any man's argument ,j of what are 



$24 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

our "deepest instincts," but as God Himself has 
taught us. 

The English Professor and clergyman of whom he 
speaks (p. 60) seems to have been a much wiser 
lover of the truth than his censor. Following his 
science in its conclusions intellectually, when it con- 
tradicted his faith, he did not renounce that faith; 
but knowing it was fixed upon higher grounds of 
absolute, truth, he ascribed the contradiction to the 
limit of human intelligence. This is right. A scien- 
tific conclusion which is against the Word of God is 
simply an intellectual illusion ; harmless if so under- 
stood, and not allowed to interfere with our faith, 
even perhaps a useful mental exereisS, an enigma 
which may (or may not) find solution in the other 
life when we are forever in the presence of the eter- 
nal truth which we now know by faith. 

(P. 63). He distinguishes " Law " in five different 
senses, and yet throughout the whole book it occurs 
incessantly and interchangeably in all these senses, 
and without any suggestion or guide to the reader 
as to which he means. Nor is this Proteus content 
only to astonish and confuse us with these sudden 
changes of costume. He multiplies them b> r varia- 
tions, as sometimes "Law" or "Laws"; as "law" 
and "laws"; as "laws of Nature" and "Natural 
laws," etc., etc. Indeed, an argument which marches 
with such an imposing display of abstract terms 
with capital initials, overawes the reader. Thus 
these 431 pages, among every few words of w r hich 
tower "Law," "Nature," "Force," "Matter," 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 325 

4t Mind/' " Science," « Personality," " Power," " Will," 
41 Order," u Adjustment," " Contrivance," u Organiza- 
tion," &c., is like the army of an Indian prince, in 
which the huge elephants with their gorgeous trap- 
pings seem to forbid resistance more than ten thou- 
sands of soldiery. 

This rhetorical artifice is certainly not favorable 
to clearness of thought, since the mind is kept in 
<loubt as to whether these words mean facts, abstrac- 
tions or persons. There is superadded irreverence 
when " Mind," which has all along been otherwise 
used, suddenly presents itself apparently to represent 
the Most Glorious and Blessed One. 

As for his five "great, leading significations" of 
law in the scientific use, the division is highly artifi- 
cial, and throws no light upon the main question. 
The whole five are really contained so far as that 
word can be used in this inexact and figurative 
sense, (see Chap. XVII. of " the Eeign of God," 
concerning the real and essential meaning of law) in 
the first; that is, a "law of Nature is an observed 
order of facts." (This could be fully shown, did 
space allow, by a minute examination of w r hat he 
says of " the Law of Gravitation, the best illustration 
of what law is and what it is not"). 

P. 69. We are told that the Law of Gravitation 
Ai is that Force which compels those movements, etc.," 
^ind that " Force is the root-idea of Law in its scien- 
tific sense." In fact the writer does in this sam$ 
28 



326 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

obscure and obscuring way use these terms Law and 
Force interchangeably. Why then does he not 
always, or even ever, express his doctrine according 
to its "root-idea," and call it the "Reign of Force 1 '? 

P. 89. He goes quite out of his way to rebuke 
any who are so theological as to call the chief scien- 
tific adversaries of religious belief, atheists. He seems 
rather to resent such an intrusion into the select 
company in which he and others converse in the 
"dry light" of science, into which none of the 
warmth or color of religious faith is admitted. Yet 
the critic of Prof. Huxley, in the instance given, did 
that eminent naturalist and elegant writer no in- 
justice in calling what he said "an honest avowal of 
atheism," even if he was not conscious of it. It is 
fortunate that there are Christian writers who see 
much farther into these things than the Duke of 
Argyll. The man now in Christendom who con- 
fronts this sentence of our faith (1 St. John v. 20) 
" We know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding that we may know Him," 
with dismissing all this to " the unknown and the 
unknowable," is an atheist, even though he rejects 
what he derisively calls " speculative atheism." 

The great matter is practical atheism. It is much 
the same whether a man says that he can prove that 
there is no such person as the one absolute and most 
true Person, or says that he does not and cannot 
know that there is such a Person. This latter sort 
of atheists is mueh the more dangerous in our time. 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 327 

It includes many more persons, not only as they 
thus escape the " popular odium " of which the Pro- 
fessor speaks, but because it suits better the worldly 
and self sufficient spirit of " modern thought." 
Therefore, whoever teaches it from a place of great 
influence over men's opinions, ought, at least, to be 
described as the atheist he is; not to punish him 
with " popular odium,'* but for truth's sake, and in 
loving pity for his darkened and imperilled soul. 

Pp. 105-107. The author notices and rather makes 
merry over the objection to his argument that it is 
"Anthropomorphism." The word is nothing, be it 
" very long " or very short. But the objection made, 
even though in this case by an unbeliever against a 
Christian, is seriously true. It is humiliating to 
notice that it is the former who says that " the Uni- 
versal Mind is essentially other than the Human 
Mind," and the latter who (adding, without right 
or reason, his own gloss — tl so that no recognizable 
relations can exist between them ") replies, " Then 
that Universal Mind is to us as if it were not." That 
indeed would triumphantly justify the philosophers 
of " the unknowable." It would also deny the essen- 
tial omnipotence of the Blessed Eternal One, insisting 
that He cannot make a creature who can know Him, 
unless He make the creature every way His counter- 
part ! 

The author's favorite proposition, served up to us 
again and again in different forms, is, as on p. 100, 
" Every law of Nature is liable to counteraction, and 



HfoS THE REIGN Ot GOD NOT " THfi RfiIGN OP LAW." 

the rule is that laws are habitually made to counter- 
act each other." Yet afterwards he observes with 
approval the actual glimpse which some students 6f 
"Nature" have got of a great Divine truth which 
excludes any " reign of law," and says (p. 122), 
" Science, &c, is already getting something like & 
• firm hold of the idea that all kinds of force are but 
forms or manifestations of some one Central Force," 
&c. How absurd then is it to repeat as a discovery 
and demonstration that the Great God is playing oft* 
against one another a vast number of forces (which 
do not exist) to do His Will, when that very 
Will is the one only Force that does exist. Yet only 
three pages after his own virtual admission of the 
error, he repeats it (p. 125) in this even exaggerated 
form — u What we call natural consequence is always 
the conjoint effect of an infinite number of elementary 
forces" &c. 

" Chap. III. — Contrivance a necessity arising out 
of the Eeign of Law 7 ," &c. 

The whole force of this chapter for the argument 
is in the first two or three pages. The rest of it 
about the flight of birds might or might not be true 
and useful without any effect upon the question of & 
" reign of law." Yet any one following the book and 
this review of it with that pure and holy fear of God, 
the beginning of wisdom (especially in all knowledge 
of Him), and still having any doubt about that 
question, can see what is here rightly deduced from 
a " reign of law": "the necessity of contrivance" 



"THR REIGN OP LAW." 820 



For whom ? For man in his little inventions and 
uses of what God is perpetually doing? No, but for 
^the Will which works in Nature," by which he 
means God Almighty — the Absolute One. The 
wholo attempted argument is, that because we all see 
that men must contrive, therefore (p. 127) "Nothing 
is more certain than that the whole order of Nature 
is one vast system of contrivance." 

In simple truth, what in His works seems like our 
contrivance cannot be such, because He is God and 
not a creature. We contrive by studying and 
making use of certain objects and movements (or 
forces, if any one prefer that word) around us, which 
are what they are not at all by our will or action, 
but by acting Will altogether outside of and above* 
u&. Compare this with the acts of Him who make* 
and moves all at once by His will, which will is the- 
one and only real force, while the " many forces " 
are only various instances of that as it appears to us. 

As for the attempted argument (p. 127, &c.) from 
a few poetical sentences of the old prophets, it is 
very " curious" indeed if Holy Writ can bo justly 
referred to in favor of the modern and unchristian 
notion of a "Reign of Law." I have already shown 
(see Chaps. VI. and VII.) by a full and careful exam- 
ination of all the Holy Scriptures, that they teach 
the exact opposite of " this idea," and so, of course, 
have no " correspondence " whatever with it. Those 
u great seers of the Old Testament" never use thift 
expression of " tho operations of Nature " or any- 
thing like it, and evidently have no such notion*. 



330 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 



Does some one still ask, How, then, do you account 
for these appearances of " design " or " contrivance" 
in the works of God? How can you reject this 
theory unless you propose a better one ? It may be 
wisest for us to have no such theories. " Canst thou 
by searching find out God ? " Why the " flower that 
blushes unseen " ? " To what purpose is this waste ? 
of beauty and life for which we can give no account ? 
I have a sure negative theory of it all. It was cer- 
tainly not that we might reason from it what is un- 
spiritual and irreligious, as for instance a " Reign of 
Law.V When we can find no other meaning of what 
God does than that, let us retire with dismay from 
our reasonings ; let us only wonder and wait and 
adore. There is one purpose of His in all, which we 
know from Himself, and that is love. And so it is at 
least a reasonable and innocent conjecture, that these 
wonderful adjustments may be meant to give man 
the very exquisite pleasure which they in fact excite 
in the investigation, to suggest to him that he may 
by inventions use the things created around him — 
above all, to kindle his wondering adoration. 

u Chapter IV. — Apparent exceptions to the 
Supremacy of Purpose." 

Observe that in the very title of this chapter we 
have another king introduced. Just now it was the 
"Reign of Law," under which all things were: now 
it is " the Supremacy of Purpose." One who rests 
quietly with faith upon the supremacy of God has 
no need of pages of labored argument for that. He 



"THE REIGN OP LAW." 331 

knows that He who has all power has loving purpose 
in all He does; that it is also of God's goodness that 
he, the humble loving creature, can in some measure 
see that purpose: so far as it is beyond his sight, he 
believes in it none the less. 

Pp. 188-194. The writer proceeds to discourse 
upon "ornament," or as I should prefer to say, 
beauty, in the works of God, and to apply it to his 
argument. Here again we have a partial and dis- 
torted view of a great truth and mystery, dogmatized 
upon and therefore chilled, dwarfed and debased to 
make a part of his notion of the "Eeign of Law." 
One might have thought that this at least would 
not be included in the mechanical. 

It is true that the Great One is all beauty and 
glory, and so pours forth in His works a measureless 
profusion of what we must admire and enjoy with 
the senses he has given us, whenever we perceive it, 
and which extends far beyond what man does or can 
«ee. But to say (as in E. of L. p. 189) : " It is certain 
enough that the gift of ornament has not been 
lavished as it is lavished for the mere admiration of 
mankind/' is mere gratuitous and presumptuous 
assertion. How is anything of God's purposes 
"certain" to us except as He tells it? But he goes 
on to say: "It would be to doubt the evidence of 
our senses and of our reason, or else to assume 
hypotheses of which there is no proof whatever, if 
we were to doubt that mere ornament, mere variety, 
are as much an end and aim in the workshop of 
Nature, as they are known to be in the workshop of 



Vm THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

the goldsmith and the jeweler. Why should they 
not?" Why indeed if there be a person "Nature," 
busy in her " workshop " ? But to one who knows 
the true God and is speaking of "His wonderful 
works," the question answers itself in another sense. 

So far as we know, God makes the multiform and 
multitudinous beauty of things to move His spiritual 
ereatures with delight and with love for Him. 
There is no occasion then for any one to say : " But 
<Jo you not know that countless instances of this 
beauty never have been, and never can be seen by 
men? To what purpose is this waste? We must 
discover the purpose." — -Not so. It is not for us feU 
find out God by such presumptuous searching: least 
of all to use the riches of His goodness in such a 
way as to remove His adorable and beloved Person 
into a misty distance of abstract words, such a* 
u Mind," " Purpose," " Contrivance " or " Law." 

And yet His infinite greatness suggests, and His 
love allows and encourages a devout conjecture of 
purpose in this vast profusion of beauty ; namely, 
that as one thing is as easy as another for Him — 
neither time, nor space, nor number, nor thought 
having any suggestion of limit to Him, — He makes 
beauty for us in such infinite wealth beyond our 
personal appropriation, so that besides what w© 
.actually see we may get glimpses of a measureless 
extent of it beyond. This may raise us to a juster 
sense of what He is, and kindle more and more that 
.adoring love of Him in which our real life consist*. 



"THK REIG^f OF LAW." S$3 



"Chapter V. — Creation by Law." What is 
tins object* of this chapter? Is it to disprove 
"Creation by Law," or to maintain it? What is 
"Creation by Law " ? These are fair question* 
for any one to ask, after he has read the chapter as 
attentively as possible. To say the least, it will be 
some time before he can answer them. The most 
that he can say to the first is, that the writer does 
believe in "Creation by Law," and does not — 
according to certain distinctions of meaning which 
are not very clear. This brings us at once to the 
other question, which is the main one, and should 
have been answered by our author at the outset,, 
whereas he never does confront it. 

In truth, the absurd ambiguity of the phrase 
forbids any real argument. The whole meaning 
turns upon the little word " by." Is it "Law, the 
Creator," or " Law, the method or means used by 
tho Creator," which w r e are arguing about ? Of 
this the writer gives us certainly no distinct inti- 
mation. We might rather suppose that he intends- 
the former sense, as only then is there a question 
claimed to be raised between Christian " scientists "" 
and Mr. Darwin and others. Besides, who should 
"reign" but the Creator? — and if "Law "reigns, 
why did or does it not create ? Let us not be told 
in reply that figures of speech must not be pressed 
to such conclusions. Is this "Reign of Law," then,, 
but a mere metaphor? Have we here 400 pages of 
scientific illustration and labored argument to show 
that this phrase can be used as a figure of speech ? 



334 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT M THE REIGN OP LAW." 

Or, if the book be all a rhapsody, let us know that. 
It is just to the writer to reject that supposition. 
His pretension is to serious argument; to facts, 
science, and the supreme truth. So it is right to 
insist that if "Law " can have a universal "reign/' 
can be a king "of all things visible and invisible," it 
can be their Creator. 

" Creation by Law " is, in this first sense, absurd ; 
but so precisely is the "Keign of Law." The 
common sense of the matter lies in small compass. 
"Law" is no person; and yet Creation is more 
essentially personal action than anything else we can 
conceive of. Some men's minds may be so perverse 
and insane* as not to see this. But we who have 
this " light of knowledge," must not try to be insane 
in that way, in order to " get upon common ground M 
and reason with such persons. "Law" in its use in 
all science is only an abstract term to express our 
observation of the usual order of facts. Can an 
order of facts observed by us create the very things 
of whose succession to one another it is only our 
expression ? 

But if the writer has been in all this chapter 
discussing " Creation by means of or in the method of 
Law," (supposing the One only and true Creator,) 
the absurdity is as certain, though not so plain upon 
the surface. He does not state this, nor even then 
say or show whether he is for or against this sort of 
" Creation." The same fatal ambiguity and false 
use of the word "Law" runs through it all ; so that 

*I use this term advisedly. 



" THE REIGN OP LAW." 335 

the refutation already made of the " Reign of Law " 
applies with even greater force to every kind of 
"Creation by Law." It is essentially contrary to 
the truth of One Self-Existent and Eternal Person : 
the "one Law-giver" — "the blessed and only 
Potentate." It presupposes something coeval with, 
external to, and independent of Him. Therefore 
simply by believing in God y we dismiss at once and 
together every sort of " Creation bj%" or " Reign of 
Law." 

"Chap. VI. — The .Reign of Law in the realm of 
Mind." We have here two sorts of misuse of the 
word * mind," which can but produce indistinctness 
and confusion, and otherwise vitiate the reasoning. 
This term appears personified, and yet treated as any 
abstraction. What (or whom) does it then mean ? 
Is it God (as sometimes really must be intended, 
for the argument on p. 275 means this if it means 
anything) — or the aggregate of men ? — or each 
individual soul of them? We can so speak of 
Matter in the mass; but not of "Mind" without 
that great fact of personal existence, which is not 
only self-evident to ourselves, but is also of the 
essence of Religion. 

A second misuse of " Mind " is the including under 
it all that is non-material in man. The word is 
simple enough. It means the intellectual and 
reasoning part of man. But it does not of itself 
include the affections and will, any more than it does 
tjie circulation of the blood. Will and love are not 



33$ THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

mere apprehensions of fact or thought. They are a 
great part of the human person : the greatest — 
much above mere knowing and thinking. The 
author of "The Keign of Law" seems to have no 
conception of that three-fold nature of man which 
was the idea of the first Christians, and believed by 
them (I think correctly) to be suggested in Holy 
Writ, and in which the deepest thinkers of our day 
seem to concur. He follows entirely a dull and 
unspiritual philosophy of the 18th century, which 
could never get beyond this account of "all things 
visible and invisible," "(including the very Eternal 
Creator Himself,) — "Matter and Mind." 

Even if we suppose only a dual division of the 
human nature, to designate the non-material part as 
" Mind " is a very unfortunate mistake. A low 
mentalism is scarcely above a low materialism. It 
is setting up an opinion of man's nature that has no 
correspondence with the language of " God's Word 
written," but is "rather repugnant" thereto. It 
suggests speaking of the Eternal Spirit as " Mind," 
(which this author in fact does) which He Himself 
never does, nor anything corresponding to it. It 
implies that our mere knowing is the chief and even 
the only essential part of spiritual being, which is 
directly contrary to our wisest reflection and plainly 
opposed to the loving Word of God. That teaches 
us, and our true reason assents, that the choosing, 
feeling, and loving power is our greatest part ; that 
the intellectual must be subjected to this in devotion 
to God : otherwise we are merely more selfish. 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 337 

really ignorant, and degraded below our original and 
ideal excellence, the more we use our intellect. 

(It is necessary here to omit, with much else, a 
careful examination of the author's arguments about 
the connection of mind with body, and the special 
functions of the brain, also what he says of free-will. 
The substantial truth about this last has been already 
stated in Chap. X.) 

But does not this author recognize a ^reat differ- 
ence between human and brute nature ? Yes, in 
degree, but not in kind. As his real notion of God 
is of an infinite man, so his notion of man is of an 
infinite brute. Thus, p. 300 : " In man analogous 
facts appear, modified by his infinitely wider range 
of character, and the infinite degrees in which the 
different elements of mind are capable of being 
mixed in him." This absurd misuse of " infinite" is 
parallel with that of " eternal," by the poet whom he 
cites (p. 286 and elsewhere) with a reverent faith, as 
if Mr. Tennyson's transcendental obscurities were 
the absolute truth ; but allowing the most that can 
avail where that defence may be applied, there is no 
excuse here in poetic license. It is not a mere 
inelegance of language, but obscures the truth, that 
God only is infinite. 

P. 301 he says: "We can see that the actions 
and opinions of men, which are the phenomena of Mind, 
do range themselves in an observed order, etc. On 
the recognition of such causes the Philosophy of His- 
tory depends ; and upon that recognition depends 
not less the possibility of applying to the exigencies 
29 



338 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

of our own time and of our own society a wise and 
successful legislation." Here we have a glimpse of 
the "hereditary legislator" of whom we shall later 
get a very full view. What really is this "Philo- 
sophy of History " beyond a few barren abstractions, 
except some one of the prejudiced theories of govern- 
ment and politics which the particular historian may 
choose to maintain? When it is that of the British 
Whig doctrinaire, it is no doubt very satisfactory to 
himself; but it has no more proved and acknow- 
ledged truth beyond his party than any other part 
of its "platform," as the American party-man would 
say. 

" Chap. VII. — Law in Politics.'* — This chapter has 
a really practical and sensible title, quite unlike the^ 
vague and really unmeaning headings of most of the 
others. " Law in Politics" — certainly. As the 
real meaning of Law includes God's will and com- 
mands to men, as also those rules which civil socie- 
ties make for their members ; so the latter, especially 
as they should be a reflection of the former, may be 
evidently if not elegantly described as "Law in 
Politics." But the writer does not mean this, but 
only that what he erroneously calls " Law " in all 
else — a vast mechanical combination of automatic 
forces — does everything also in legislation and gov- 
ernment. 

Yet would not his own experience teach him that 
in the making of real laws men are responsibly free, 
and not the mere puppets of an inexorable necessity? 



"THE REIGN OF LAW." 339 

In this suggestion we may perhaps find the reason 
why this work is crowned with a demonstration of 
"Law in Politics." It is not that we have again a 
"self-denying ordinance" of hereditary legislators, 
this time announcing that they who make laws have 
no merit in it, being moved thereto by invariable 
forces from without. No; it is the subjects of law 
who are in this case. Our author is of the few who 
study these " Natural laws," and so are able adroitly 
and diligently to play them off against one another, 
and thus govern the many. 

The object of the present writer in calling atten- 
tion to this is not at all to deride, but to understand 
the Duke of Argyll, and so lay open his real thought 
to others. And only thus can we account for this 
last chapter w T hich has little connection with what 
precedes. Two or three great errors pervade it all. 
The first of these is that the writer has no vision of 
the great fact that all human government is derived 
from God ; has no authority except as His " minis- 
ter," and ought to enquire for and do His Will in all 
it does. The second cardinal fact of politics which I 
may reverently say "is like unto it," is that God's 
laws for men given in His Word are the best and 
indispensable guide in both the making and execut- 
ing of human laws. Above all should good govern- 
ment apply always the two great laws of love, which 
are the most practical and perfect suggestion of all 
human conduct. There is no notice of these in the 
whole chapter, whether from having no thought of 
them in this application, or from fear of being sen- 



340 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

timental or theological in such a matter-of-fact thing 
as government. 

But then if we could leave out of our view of 
Politics in any high sense, the authority and the 
written will of God, what is the purpose of it aa 
regards men ? What is government for? Passing 
by foreign politics, which is merely incidental to the 
main purpose, first, the safety of subjects in life, 
person, and property, and the settlement of disputes 
between them ; secondly, to regulate trade and pro- 
vide certain general conveniences, as roads, post- 
offices and the like. It is a question whether the 
latter is within the just power of Law. There 
is no question that the former is chief and essential. 
Yet this is the part of politics to which our author's 
argument makes no sort of reference! In fact it is 
only "the blessedness of commerce " and "the wealth 
of nations" which are recognized as of importance 
in the discussion. This is a very low and a very 
narrow sense of Politics, and of itself makes the 
whole treatment meager. 

P. 325. ;< And here we come on a great subject : 
the function of Human Law as distinguished from 
Natural Law," etc. In this whole passage there ia 
an absurd reversal of actual relations. How is it a 
great subject to distinguish things which have noth- 
ing in common but a word misapplied to one of 
them? not as much as penny-jpos£ and military-pos£? 
" Human Law " is real law ; " Natural Law " is no 
law at all ; but a figurative phrase used in modern 
science, so misleading from truth that it ought in. 



" THE REIGN OF LAW." 341 

the scientific use at least to be incessantly explained 
as such, or better, entirely abandoned. One would 
think from this author that the illusive trope was 
the original, and the reality the figure. 

Thus his entire idea of Human Law is " the col- 
lective Will of Society " (p. 326), instead of the 
interpretation of the blessed Will of God as to certain 
duties of men to one another. This low notion of a 
'"■social compact/' though some religious men have 
patronized it, is essentially and in necessary result 
irreligious. He rightly claims the honor of it for 
* modern times." Before the traditionary truths of 
mankind were so much effaced by "'wisdom .of .this 
world," even corrupt religions held fast the truth 
that Divine will was a necessary part of human 
politics; only they misapplied it. That we "know 
the true God" requires us to purify and apply it 
more than ever. Yet this Christian writer exults in 
the idea of founding Human Law upon the "Laws 
of Nature," as being the greatest modern and final 
victory over the errors of all the past. If he or his 
apologists say that these "Laws of Nature" are the 
Will of God as they have discovered it, why not say 
that? why not call them laws of God ? Why banish 
the thought of His personal Will from the expression ? 
It is because they are not thinking of Him, but of 
their own imagined discoveries, their false " Reigri 
of Law." 

There is a direct communication from Himself of 
His "good and acceptable and perfect Will." It 
concerns directly all great matters of politics, which 



342 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

belong among the moral acts of men, and illuminates 
all its minor topics as nothing else can. Yet this 
writer has not a word or a hint about it in his dis- 
cussion of law in politics. Neglect of this even 
impairs his view of history. For as he discusses 
this with much about the Greeks, and especially 
Aristotle, he has not a word for a certain well-known 
nation with a remarkable system of laws for a 
thousand years before Aristotle, in which the direct 
will of God was rightly recognized as the true " Law 
in Politics." 

Later on (p. 332) we find him setting in contrast 
the follies of ancient politics with the wisdom of 
modern. He quotes Dugald Stewart with approval, 
thus: " The one great error of ancient systems of 
political philosophy that the natural desire of men 
for the accumulation of wealth is an evil, etc. How 
opposite is the doctrine of modern politicians .... 
their great aim is to open new r sources of national 
opulence, " &c. 

In this, indeed, he only follows all the leaders of 
what is now called the science of Political Economy, 
assuming even, what they do not, that this is the 
chief affair of Politics. But there is a greater fault 
here for a champion of Christian belief. He not 
only talks (see p. 332) of the " blessedness of Com- 
merce," while he has no such epithets for, and no 
mention at all of, " weightier matters of the law "; 
but, without caution or qualification, he mentions 
and affirms this wisdom of " modern nations " in 
these words : " They never held the absurd doctrine 



'THE REIGN OF LAW." 843 



that Nature was wrong when she taught men to 
desire wealth, " etc. There is no excuse for this rude 
and irreverent contradiction in express words of Him 
who is the wisest and kindest friend of men, who, 
though Sovereign Lord, condescended to be one of 
us, that He might be " the Light of the world." 

For no matter how repugnant this may be to 
opinions and passions of civilized men, or how ready- 
many Christian writers may be with comments upon 
the sacred words to show that they do allow what men 
are so desirous to do, it is no less certain that He said, 
u Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth," 
and warned them against " the deceitfulness of 
riches "; as also that He inspired one afterward to 
say in His name that " the love of money is the root 
of all evil." I repeat then that it is rude and irrev- 
erent for any Christian writer to speak of tl the 
absurd doctrine that Nature was wrong when she 
taught men to desire wealth," and that such treat- 
ment of Our Lord's words will do more harm to the 
faith of others than any arguments for faith which 
he thinks he is making, can do good. It may be 
that the general ideas of Political Economy can be 
shown not to contradict these holy words ; but this 
must be shown positively. And all loving honor 
and careful reverence for them must be shown by 
whoever has to mention things which certainly at 
first sight, and most certainly as above expressed, do 
not accord with those words. And it is also certain 
that if upon any ground we promote the love and 
pursuit of riches among men, we must take at least 



344 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

equal pains at the same time to impress them with 
the warnings against spiritual harm of which they 
then stand in jeopardy. 

What follows for many pages is a really interesting 
account of the growth of manufactures in England, 
and of legislation about their work-people. His 
attempt to connect this with his notion of a " Beign 
of Law " is futile. Upon that theory the hard men 
who opposed all interference with their gains, by 
law in behalf of their workmen, were right. It was 
no figment of "Natural Law " which brought this 
protection against oppression — this check to the 
political economy which was making a few " mill- 
owners" very rich, and thousands of men, women 
and children haggard and weak, ignorant and wicked. 
No, it was some conviction of a real law, the raw of 
love which Grod has given us all in original tradition, 
and responding consciousness; but most of all in 
Christ's glorious Gospel. 

We have not a word cf this here, but only (as p. 
356, &c.) a sort of physico-metaphysical argument 
about ' ( Freedom " and " Will," and a " true and a false 
doctrine of Necessity," It shows the blindness and 
folly of this mechanical and commercial idea of 
u Law in Politics," that he attributes the degradation 
of the factory work-people to their '" instincts of 
labor, having for their conscious jjurpose the acqui- 
sition of wealth." It is his " love of gain" which 
with poor Muggins the saw-grinder "overrides even 
the love of life," and affectionate pity for his wife 
and children, so that he makes them as well as 



THE REIGN OF LAW." 345 



himself grow prematurely old with incessant work, 
bad food and air, scanty clothing, much dirt, utter 
ignorance and no religion. So this natural and 
useful love of gain must be checked in him by the 
i( Will of the Community in the form of Law," 
enacted by hereditary legislators and the like. 

How little this intelligent and well-intending man 
comprehends the life and needs of his poor country- 
men. Muggins and his fellows hope for nothing 
from their incessant labor but a miserable living, 
and dare not let it go for a day lest they lose that. 
There is a " love of gain " somewhere that has to do 
with their wretchedness, but it is not in them. 
They have their unhappy sins which Acts of Parlia- 
ment have no force to " take away," the real .blessed 
remedy for which the notion of a "IJeign of Law " 
does its utmost to counteract. 

P. 369, &c. — He exhibits to us among the " natural 
laws" or "forces " out of whose combined "Reign " 
we may work results in Politics, " the Spirit of 
Association." This is, as he describes it, merely a 
part of the vast machine of " Law," which the deep 
student and skilful manipulator,„who is also a legis- 
lator (by inheritance or otherwise), can " contrive " 
and "adjust" with other forces to make people good 
and happy by statute, or merely persuade them to 
achieve the same by voluntary societies. This force, 
he says, is an instinct of self ; but it can be guided by 
wise men for the good of all. Everything implies 
that to use this " force " to any great purpose belong* 
to the modern discovery of a "Reign of Law." 



346 THE REIGN OF GOD KOT " THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

What then must we judge of the whole theory 
when we find this illustration of it (in which at last,, 
for the first and last time, we have mention of that 
great Divine institution, — without accounting for 
which, for its influence everywhere actual, and 
much greater possible, any philosophy of human 
life and improvement, personal, social or political, 
would be fatally defective)? " The interests of Self, 
justly appreciated and rightly understood, may be, 
nay, indeed must be the interests also of other men, 
of society, of country, of the Church, and of the 
world." Is this meant to imply that the wonderful 
kingdom of God on earth is a human institution, one 
of the "adjustments " of the " Natural Law of Asso- 
ciation "? Certainly this indifferent silence about 
it as a great power among men for good, shows that 
he does not recognize it as that society of men of 
which God is the Patron and His Son the ever- 
present Head, and in which are treasured all the 
spiritual interests of mankind. 

Accordingly (p. 376) w T e learn that " two things 
are necessary to cure all political evils of our time," 
first, unshaken faith in ( — God f and His means of 
grace to mankind ? No, but) great Natural laws ; 
and secondly, a faith not less assured in ( — here at 
least we may hope for a mention of the almighty 
goodness ; but no — ) the free agency of Man, etc. 
Indeed the latter has no meaning here, as according 
to the notion of a " Eeign of Law " free agency is an. 
illusion ; only a part of the movement of the " great 
Natural Laws." And almost as if to set this above 
and against the incarnate Word of God Himself, the 



"THE KEIGN OP LAW." 347 

words above quoted are followed by a repetition in 
even stronger terms of what we have already noticed 
contradicting " what Our Lord Jesus Christ saith." 
"Thus the love of gain is an instinct implanted in 
the human mind, and the endeavor to suppress it 
has always been the violation of a Natural Law." 
Then indeed the Kingdom of Him Who said, " Lay 
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth " intends 
the overthrow of these men's " Reign of Law j" and if 
so, that is my side forever. 

The author's discussion of English legislation upon 
labor and the combinations of laborers is spoiled for 
any good effect by the same false philosophy. He 
thinks the " great science of Politics " much behind 
the others, and hopes for its great advancement in 
the direction he pursues. Whatever is high and true 
in Politics is not to be found by trying to make " a 
great science " of it, but by returning to the simplest 
principles of order, justice, and mercy; by illuminat- 
ing it with all true religion ; by making all jurispru- 
dence and jurisdiction conform to the only true Law 
—the Will of the Only True God. 

That would answer favorably the question whether 
modern nations are to run the career of all of old ; 
and each like them and like a great tree, decay, die, 
and fall at last. The Duke of Argyll thinks not, 
because for some reasons (among w T hich he does not 
mention or hint at the mighty Kingdom of Our Lord 
now among men), u that epoch has passed away." 
But is it to him only a Hebrew rhapsody which 
says: "The nation or kingdom that will not serve 
thee, shall perish "? 



348 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW.' 



APPENDIX E. 

SOME REMARKS UPON " THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE 
AS A LAW " BY MARK HOPKINS, D. D., LL.D., &C. 

HE who observes carefully will find everywhere 
and in most unexpected places marks of the 
abject slavery to this false notion of " law " which 
prevails in all modern reasoning upon questions of 
philosophy or religion. Even the more spiritual 
and free pilgrims towards Divine truth start off 
with this cumbersome burden on their back, like 
Bunyan's "Christian," fancying it a part of the 
living body, not as a hunchback's disfigurement 
either, but as a part of " the dignity of human 
nature." 

To the present writer the most impressive and 
touching instance of this is in a book with the excel- 
lent title given above — "The Law of Love," &c. If 
there be any book which this age of Christendom 
needs more than anything else, it is one which, 
within moderate compass and in simple but power- 
ful words, shall recall us all to the true theory and 
practice of a good life in Jesus Christ Our Lord 
according to His own great commandments. This 
author is also a most pure and amiable man, revered 
by hundreds of cultivated men as their wisest in- 
structor. I notice this book also especially because, 
first, it refers to the " Eeign of Law" in its "view 
of the immutability of law (the only correct one)/' 



"the law of love and love as a law." 349 

and because it seems rather an attempt to supply the 
confessed defect of that book in not treating of 
"Law in Christian Theology. " 

Before I illustrate the whole subject by showing 
how the book of Dr. Hopkins is not the book we 
need, perhaps I ought rather to qualify my positive 
assertion of such a need. What is w r anted is that 
Christian teaching — the making Christ's disciples of 
this and " all nations" — shall be full of the thought 
that the first and greatest duty of every human soul 
is to love God with all the heart, and then to love 
one's neighbor. It is just that first and greatest 
commandment that the new book upon "the Law of 
Love and Love as a Law " must have much and most 
to say about. Eeligious writing now-a-days does 
sometimes feebly urge this divine affection as being, 
if not imaginary and impossible, the highest orna- 
ment of a holy life, or a fine figure of speech to 
describe being very good otherwise. Now such a 
book as I have supposed might be a powerful help to 
call back the general teaching by God's ministers 
and general conscious effort by' His people of this 
personal love for Him, the lack of which nothing 
else can supply. 

The general mistake of the book appears upon its 
title-page: "The Law, &c, or Moral Science, theo- 
retical and practical." Why should there be any 
"Moral Science"? We may allow of Physical or 
even Mental Science — the methodical statement of 
what men have so far discovered in these matters of 
knowledge, and as an assistance for further investi- 
30 



350 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." 

gation. But what is "morals"? Simply what a 
man ought to do under the second great command- 
ment of Our Lord — to love his neighbor as himself. 
Is this something which men have discovered in 
their curiosity after truth, and to which they may 
go on to add by further discovery? Not at all. It 
is something which God tells them directly, which is 
of the real substance of their actual living, and which 
cannot rightly be separated from their religion. 
Then also He has organized among them a society 
with continual succession to remind them of these 
two inseparable matters, and to be their guide in 
questions of doubt about them. 

Can we Christians also have a science of our duty? 
Possibly in one aspect of it as a cautious and rev* 
erent speculation about such questions as are not 
precisely defined in God's Word. Yet even then, in 
all experience, what is there to show of any good 
done by it? There has been some plain experience 
of harm from the self-sufficiency of men in such 
attempts at a science of morals. In truth the very 
Word of God warns us that such mingling of our specu- 
lations with Divine truth tends only to obscure it. 
Such science also invariably works to separate morals 
from religion in men's apprehension, and that always 
promotes irreligion. The severance is also in many 
ways unwholesome for good morals. 

If we suppose what we know about this to have 
come to all men by information given to the first 
man, and coming down to all others by tradition, or 
by a moral instinct called " conscience," in either of 



"THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE AS A LAW." 351 



these ways in different parts or proportions ; still we 
know that it has been taught them completely by a 
later Word of God. This last also was not mere 
information dispersed in the world 2000 years ago, 
or only digested in a book ; but as we have noticed 
before, provided to be kept alive by the instructions 
and rites of a powerful society of its believers, in 
which God maintains a special perpetual presence, 
and provides that it shall continue by orderly suc- 
cession in all the generations and communities of 
men. So far as the knowledge, and still more the 
practice of these duties is indispensable to men, this 
is thus provided for. If, then, any men thus favored 
should by irresponsible studies and writings, devise 
other means for this instruction, it could only con- 
fuse and mislead them away from the Divine method. 
I grant that when this just idea of the Church as 
God's school of duty— Ecclesia docens — disappears 
from the minds of even Christian men, such human 
contrivances to take its place are more natural. 
But that is one of the reasons why we ought all to 
return to that idea, clearly taught in the New 
Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Compare this with a " moral science " as in the 
very case before us, intended and supposed to be 
most Christian. On the one hand we have a book 
with many chapters of doubtful assumptions, and 
(as they always would be to most learners,) obscure 
if not quite unintelligible reasonings, followed by 
other chapters of special directions of what we ought 
to do — too numerous to be called principles, and too 



352 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

few to reach a hundredth part of our actual duties. 
On the other hand we have a vast association of 
men with God Himself, having representatives in 
every neighborhood and company of men, so that 
these may always know one another personally \ 
speaking in each household to the smallest child, as 
well as gathering the little ones in companies, and 
teaching them duty to God and one's neighbor in a 
catechism very simple, yet profoundly wise : follow- 
ing them through all ages and stages of life here ta 
its end with frequent teachings to us all of God'a 
will and laws, and their application to each one's 
choices and acts, with a God's Book of which it ia 
" witness and keeper," which it puts in all hands and 
refers to as perfect truth. 

Thus a science of morals is not needed, and is of 
no use to men in helping them to be goody — to do their 
duties. But on the other hand it may hinder them 
in this by being taken as a substitute for the true 
means; or even if it be imagined a help to that, by 
confusing them with its artificial distinctions and 
false assumptions. Thus this author sets out with 
that same false notion of a " reign of law," which 
has been refuted in the present book. He proceeds 
at once to search for the " ground of obligation " of 
our duty. So he must find it not in the Supreme 
Will, but in some "law" which is at least equally 
eternal with that Will. He mentions ten " theories " 
of such obligation. One of these is the simple trutli 
as God Himself teaches it to us all. He rejects and 
supposes that he refutes that, establishing his own. 



"the law of love and love as a law." 353 

notion which is quite as unsatisfactory and obscure 
as any of the eight others. 

Let us see how he disposes (p. 15) of the Divine 
fact that the Will of God is the highest conception 
and reason why we ought to do or desire anything. 
Xl According to an eighth system the will of God is 
the ground of obligation. We are, it is said, under 
obligation to do whatever He commands, simply 
because He commands it. Philosophically this is 
the same doctrine as that of Hobbes who referred 
everything to the will of the law-giver, or of the 
law-making power regarded simply as will and 
accompanied by power. The question is whether 
the will of any being taken by itself and without 
reference to those qualities and motives that lie 
back of will, can be the ground of obligation. It is 
true that the will of God is an infallible rule, and 
that we are to do unhesitatingly whatever He com- 
mands. It is true also that this can be said of no 
other will, whether of an individual or of any number 
of individuals however organized. It is this fact 
that the will of God is to be always and implicitly 
obeyed that gives the system now in question its 
plausibility. But are we to obey his will simply 
because it is His will, or from faith, that is, because 
we have adequate ground for implicit confidence 
that His will will always be determined by wisdom 
&nd goodness?" 

We are here in the presence of a question surpassed 
by none other which human thought can compass. 
Let us therefore approach it with all loving and 



354 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

religious humility which is our best wisdom. The 
great truth of what we should think of God and His 
will ought not to stand on the level of our reason- 
ings. And thus in Appendix G. infra, I have 
ventured only to behold it, and exhibit it to others 
in a meditation, not an argument. But dealing with 
the arguments of a fellow-man, I may fairly show 
the inherent futility of them all by the example of 
the first. Two hundred years ago the atheist 
Hobbes argued that there is no absolute truth in 
religion, and no difference of right and wrong in 
principle for our conduct, but that whatever the 
despot or other legislature of our country should or- 
dain by human law would be the true religion for us 
and the right thing to do. Dr. Hopkins says that 
this is " philosophically the same " as to know of no 
higher or so high reason for doing anything as 
simply to obey the blessed will of Him by whose 
will alone all else exists — we and these philosophers 
themselves — kings, senators and citizens, — by whose 
will alone men have any knowledge, sentiments or 
duties. Not only are these two neither " philosoph- 
ically" nor in any other way "the same doctrine," 
but no two ideas are more opposed. The will of 
God is sui generis. Nothing else is comparable to it 
in authority, in power, in perfect knowledge of all 
persons and things, as being itself the cause of the 
occasions of our doing right, as being the very will 
of absolute and actual love. 

In truth all actual religion is at last involved in 
this idea. If we fancy that we can go anywhere 



"the law op love and love as a law." 355 

back of this glorious Person, and find something to 
which He is in the minutest degree subject, we have 
so far "departed from the living God." I do not 
say that we can all, or possibly any of us really 
see Him in this His absolute and all-sufficient Self- 
Existence — Himself the Source and Purpose, " the 
Beginning and the Ending " of everything else good 
we can conceive of. But we can all with adoration 
and awe believe this, and in this worshipping love 
reject the thought of anything great or good except 
as what He chooses shall be. 

Is it indeed "the question whether the will of any 
being taken by itself, &c, can be the ground of obli- 
gation " ? We do ourselves great wrong (Him we 
cannot affect in His infinite greatness), if we think 
of God with such comparisons. He is not " any 
being " for such reasoning. With all other persons 
we may, and must " consider qualities and motives 
that lie back of will." They are all our fellow- 
creatures, sharing with us that little range of will 
which He has allowed to us all (we fellow-men 
having great common faults of character), and only 
such little power and authority as He has distributed 
to them in order that they may do His will. He is 
the " One law-giver.'' " Of Him, and to Him, and 
through Him are all things; to whom be glory 
forever." 

But the writer as a good man to whom that Will 
of God is law, hastens to declare that it is in fact 
.an " infallible rule" for a man to act by ; not because 
it is the reason for our obedience, but because it 



356 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

always agrees with that true reason. This he says 
"gives the system now in question (meaning that 
simple and complete account of all goodness which 
God Himself has given us: as when Our Lord said — 
" he that doeth the Will of God the same is my 
brother" &c.) — its plausibility. Plausibility indeed ! 
One might better talk of the plausibility of the 
Ten Commandments. His notion is that we ought 
to do our duties from some great eternal reasons, 
that what God wishes of us is always according to 
those eternal reasons, and so His will is a safe guide 
to such duty. But let any one take the pains to 
examine in Holy Scripture the many directions to 
obey God's Will, and allusions to it in mentioning 
our various duties, and he will see that while not one 
suggests the other account of it, a hundred imply 
that the one and sufficient reason why we should do 
God's will is simply because it is His will. 

This also confutes the author's false notion that 
there is no place for faith in God, unless that we 
thus have " adequate ground for implicit confidence 
that His will will always be determined by wisdom 
and goodness." His will determines all things, and is 
wisdom and goodness. When w^e are most wise and 
loving we can find nothing higher than the mere will 
of God, nothing else so high. And is there nothing 
then left for religious faith? Is it then, as Dr. H. 
says, "impossible " ? He makes no attempt to prove 
this extraordinary assertion either from the reason 
of the thing or from Holy Scripture. We, however, 
will not leave it so, but will briefly note what God 



44 THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE AS A LAW." 357 

does teach us of faith by our reason and experience 
and a few plain sentences, out of many such, in Hi& 
Word written. 

And, first, we cannot begin any true religion which 
is the very life for which God made us, without faith 
in Him. "He that cometh unto God must believe 
that He is" — is what He is essentially ; therefore to 
be so loved and obeyed that we can conceive of no 
other so high reason for doing anything as that it is 
His will. Not but what the Good One accepts our 
poor obedience when other motives mix with what 
is the true and highest, and even when that last is 
hardly in our thoughts. But that true and highest 
motive we must be always endeavoring to recognize 
and follow. And so men would much more in fact if 
the moral and religious teaching of our day were not 
so lamentably silent about the personal duty of loving- 
God. And at last, in the place and life of " perfect 
love," He will reward us with the immediate vision 
and enjoyment of this in all we do. 

And cannot one who knows no higher reason for 
doing God's will than that it is His will, have faith 
as a degraded and guilty creature to confide in the 
Eedemption of Our Lord ? to rise above the pleasures 
and possessions of the brief present, and patiently 
to endure its sorrows? to be spiritual instead of 
worldly and animal, walking " by faith and not by 
sight"? to love the invisible God and that much 
greater part of our neighbors whom we never see? 

On the other hand not once in Holy Writ is it 
said or suggested that the will of God is our rule of 



358 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 



conduct, because we have faith " that His will will 
always be determined by wisdom and goodness." Yet 
there are forty of the clearest and strongest sen- 
tences, which present our doing the will of God from 
the heart as the greatest achievement of a man ; and 
even that man who " was God " said simply, " My 
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." All- 
exists for that "good pleasure,' 7 whether it know and 
choose that purpose or not. It is oar distinction, as> 
God has made us in His glorious image, to do His 
will with knowledge and of loving choice. 

Why even as between fellow-creatures we can 
conceive and even know as a fact that one can be so- 
devoted to another in love as to live only for him 
and to be happy only in doing what he wishes- 
Such an affection may in fact always fall short of our 
ideal conception, and is indeed very likely to excite 
contempt. But why ? Because the one so loved is 
at the best so little and imperfect. Bat when it i& 
one of us thus loving the Unapproachable and Per- 
fect One, the only sorrow is in our present coming 
short, and our aspirations may soar without a check 
in the endless future which extends before and abova 
us. 

With this all the Word of God is in clear and 
beautiful accord. The first and great law is to love 
Him. Such love aspires above all, and including all r 
to know and to do what He wishes. It glows in all 
those mighty sayings of Holy Writ which bid us- 
"do all to the glory of God.' 1 Whatever we ought to 
do is right because it is His will, not is His will 



1 THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE AS A LAW." 



because it is right. He is 4i the Beginning and the 
Ending." In this life of love only we " find rest for 
our souls," success for all their aspirations, an im- 
measurable calmness of felicity. 

All the other theories of moral obligation have 
what truth there is in them as they are included in 
this. Is it that of utility? The will of God will 
effect what is most for our welfare; for He is 
V loving unto every man and His tender mercies are 
•over all His works." Is it the " fitness," or " truth." 
or " order" of things? That is true and fit and the 
true order which He does and because He does it. 
Is it said that our duty arises from our " relations " ? 
Whence came those relations ? They are but a part 
of that will of God. To say that things are right 
because they are right is scarcely more than a mere 
juggle of words. This as well as Dr. H.'s equally 
Unsatisfactory theory of man seeking his " end," are 
but blind gropings in the wrong direction after need- 
Jess theories. We have only to turn toward the 
light and open our eyes to see that simple glorious 
truth given to us direct from Heaven, that to love 
God with all the heart, and for that love to do all 
His will, is the (not "chief" but) whole end of man. 

In this light his two following arguments require 
mo answer: that 1st. on this supposition " moral 
science is impossible," and 2d. that then, " God has 
no moral character." But this last expression is at 
once so irreverent and unmeaning that it may puzzle 
some minds as a mysterious argument to which they 
know not how to reply. "Moral character," as on© 



360 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

of the phrases of the artificial " moral science," has 
no meaning at all but as it describes how the 
Absolute Lord has made men to obey His will with 
knowledge of it and freedom of choice, and therefore 
a possibility of guilty disobedience. For any of 
them then to apply this same measure to Him, and 
set aside the glorious truth about Him, because, 
according to that, He would have " no moral charac- 
ter," is only so much the worse for their " moral 
science." 

In the same mistaken w T ay he quotes the rash 
speech of Abraham (followed soon by humble con- 
fession of his presumption), as " the appeal of God to 
Abraham: * Shall not the judge of all the earth do 
right ? ' " Yet in no just sense is this contrary to the 
truth, that whatever is God's will is for that reason 
right. Finally he tells us of that divine truth: 
" This system has been strangely adopted under the 
impression that it honors God. It renders it impos- 
sible that He should be honored. 91 In this he seems to 
copy Sir James Mcintosh. That judicious literary 
critic and elegant Whig orator was altogether out of 
his depth in giving judgment upon the vast matters 
of religion. Such an assertion by Dr. Hopkins 
requires more serious notice. That it is very rash and 
incorrect to say that "it renders it impossible, &c." 
is very plain from my own experience; which is 
that only by this thought of the Supreme will can 
my soul most glorify God. But the greatest refu- 
tation of it is in the mighty voice of Holy Writ, 
proclaiming with simple directness in Psalms, 



"THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE AS A LAW." 361 

Epistles and Gospels, that the Will of God is the 
sole and sufficient reason for all things. 

It would be interesting and useful even now to 
pursue this criticism into the other theoretical dis- 
cussions and practical rules of which, the book is 
made up. But having shown the primary error 
which forbids the author's giving a true account of 
"the Law of Love," and its alliance with the other 
false notion of a "reign of law," we shall have space 
only for a few brief notices of some passages which 
further illustrate this. 

For the first hundred pages more of " theoretical 
morals/' we have a toil and struggle to make an 
analytical "science" of what is simple truth from 
God and duty for man. The very ingenuities of this 
are, as the psalm of burial says of old age, " but 
labor and sorrow." Thus the phrase of St. Paul, 
"a law unto themselves," is quoted to justify this 
mechanical notion of some " law " in morals apart 
from the simple will of God. The real meaning of 
this has been fully shown before (see App. C). .Ref- 
erence to that exposition will show that the words 
give no support whatever to the notion of a " reign 
of law " in morals. The poverty of even plausible 
references for this theory to Holy Writ, is also shown 
in repeated citations of the words of Abraham (Gen. 
xviii. 25), with the same misapprehension of them 
that has been already exposed. 

P. 74. He inverts the truth about the word " law," 
assuming the misleading misuse of it in modern times 
31 



862 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

to be the primary and literal, and the other the 
figurative. Thus : " As simple law always has 
respect to force acting uniformly, so does obligation 
or moral law," &c, p. 86-87. Here we have this good 
man introducing with a deprecatory phrase (" If we 
may venture to speak of God in such a connection,") 
which does not at all excuse the presumption, some 
reasonings about what God must do as " acting 
morally," because a man ought to do certain things. 
It is the same blind and rash folly which we have 
noticed before, in allotting to Our Most High Lord 
what He may be and do because otherwise He would 
not have a i; moral character." 

The XII. Chapter, of" Conscience," begins with the 
universal assumption of our day of conscience as some 
distinct faculty that " sets up a tribunal," &c. But 
this whole matter is fully discussed in App, G, and 
to that I refer the reader. 

Finally, when he proceeds to treat of " Love," as 
was inevitable this treatment is altogether artificial 
and erroneous. He seriously analyzes it by instances 
of merely incorrect uses of the word in no way 
connected with its real and primary meaning as we 
have it in the great law of man's life. What has 
the "love of food, books," &c. (see p. 99) to do 
with this? Even the account of these as "only 
desire " is incorrect ; since in such uses tl love " often 
means also and mainly enjoyment. Chap. II. Div. 
II — which treats of " Complacent Love," which "is 
not the love commanded by God," and "Eighteous 
Indignation," is another instance of the artificial 



* THE LAW OF LOVE AND LOVE AS A LAW." 363 

distinctions and false reasonings into which his 
wrong theory misleads the writer. So also his 
laborious speculation as to " how love becomes law." 
How indeed? Because God gives it as the law. He 
made me to — and bade me — love. But this blind 
"science," having refused to see the central truth 
that all law is simply God's will, must grope after 
some other account of it. 

The latter half of the book is occupied with 
"Love as a Law — Practical Morals." Its "prelimi- 
nary statement," &c, of this, is of the same artificial 
and needless obscuring of a simple truth. The 
"practical morals " are much better treated. What 
is said is usually simple, intelligible and just. Yet 
how much better than any science is the simple 
teaching of duty by God's Church and Word. 
Even what is true in details is in the former set on a 
lower plane of action. The constant effort is to 
make the love of God only a rule of good, instead of 
that very good, itself '" the fulfilling of the law." 

[If by any chance what has just been said should 
fall under the eyes of the venerable and venerated 
author so strongly criticised, the present writer begs 
him to believe that he has said only what he thought 
needful for the truth which we both seek, and shall 
ere long see in its power away from the illusions of 
this life : that so far from being desirous, or even 
reckless, of saying something to wound his revered 
preceptor, he would at any time rather be among the 
many to contribute to his deserved honors.] 



364 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT U THE REIGN OF LAW." 



APPENDIX F. 

REFLECTIONS UPON THE MISUSE AND MISCHIEF OF 
ABSTRACT TERMS. 

ANY one whose attention is called by whatso- 
ever suggestion to the way in which the Holy 
Scriptures and other serious writings of former ages 
differ from those of our time in regard to the use of 
abstract words, will be more and more struck with 
the contrast as he continues the comparison. The 
whole course of enquiry in this book is an illustration 
of the fact. The metaphysical writers whom I have 
occasion to quote and to contrast with what the 
Word of God says about the same subjects, usually 
talk of "attributes," " principles," " laws," and all 
manner of abstractions, often indeed personifying 
them, while the other sort speak most of persons — of 
God Himself, and such of His creatures as He has 
made to know Him. This neglect of persons and 
supplying their place by personified abstractions is 
such a favorite and frequent device of one class of 
writers (as e. g. in the " Beign of Law ") that their 
pages are so studded with capital letters as to sug- 
gest to one who casually opens such a book that it is 
historical or even geographical instead of philosophi- 
cal. In any writings that touch upon religion we 
ought indeed often to find capital initials of such 
nouns or pronouns as represent the Sacred Name; 
but just these are missing where the others abound. 



THE MISUSE AND MISCHIEF OF ABSTRACT TERMS. 365 

I neither attempt to traverse the old and exten- 
sive field of discussion as to the nature of abstract 
terms, nor enquire as to their value in some matters 
of thought. I only state what has specially come 
to my notice in this enquiry into " Natural Law"; 
that the excessive and all but exclusive use of them 
now in treating questions of duty and religion is 
different from that of Holy Scripture, and is mis- 
leading and irreligious in its tendency. 

Indeed these su^o-estions are meant not so much 
for those versed in metaphysics as for the mass of 
intelligent readers who meet with such things in all 
that is now written for general reading, and who 
have a right to have this tendency and effect ex- 
plained to them. I shall attempt this with a few 
instances of different kinds, in addition to what has 
been pointed out in the book about the misleading 
use of the terms « Law," " Mind," « Nature," &c. 

It is well, however, first to trace what seems to be 
the general process of the mischief. To do this, we 
must at once discard the notion of Plato and all the 
mere philosophers, that the only cause of wrong 
opinions is ignorance, and that men only need to bo 
shown what is true to prefer it to the false. We 
know by the Word of God and real universal experi- 
ence, that with all mankind, self-conceit and selfish- 
ness, and a certain perverse dislike to some religious 
truth, interfere with the convincing force of what is 
true. Unless we wish to be deceived, wo must 
always counteract these, or at least make some 
allowance for them. 



866 T0B REm» OIF GO© NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Thus when, with tho instinct of love of know- 
ledge we are thinking about certain subjects, wo 
rather avoid a truth which is painful and humiliating, 
and turn towards thoughts which please and flatter. 
In this case the mind may be ambitious to know, and 
yet not truth-loving enough to encounter the un- 
pleasant truth. It will then avail itself of any 
artifices of language which seem to accomplish this. 
A most effective device of the kind, whether of 
indulgent self-deception, or of sophistry meant to 
mislead others, is by using " goodly words " which 
appear to convey truth while they suppress its force. 
Abstract terms used instead of the real personal 
words are most effective for this. They are capable 
of different shades of meaning. They make a fainter 
impression of reality, or an altogether false one. 
Perversions of Christian doctrine resort much to 
them, and themselves exist as "isms." 

Another snare of men's intelligence is in their self- 
conceit. Pride of opinion makes them uncandid. 
Flattery betrays their judgment when nothing else 
can. No other flattery is so seductive as that which 
secures our own minds as its spokesman. Abstract 
notions are rather our own making, and, if not 
warned of the danger, and firm in self-denial, we are 
likely to prefer them to the thought of the real 
persons and things with which we have to do. They 
are the mist and twilight, while personal words are 
the broad, bright day. The advocate of false opinions 
finds the former most to his mind. He who best 
comprehends truth and duty, prefers the others ; and 
we sometimes call this " common sense." 



THE MISUSE AND MISCHIEF 09 ABSTRACT TERMS. 367 

That very word "duty," in its right use, reminds 
us of another way in which abstract words are mis- 
chievous. (I say in its right use, for " duty/' if given 
out by itself abstractly as some great law or law- 
giver or executive, becomes an instance of the 
mischief.) Men often want to get rid of their duty, 
or to influence other men to neglect theirs. Now 
duty is intensely personal. It has been most wisely 
stated and comprehended as u my duty towards God f 
and my duty towards my neighbor." But if for all 
those powerfully personal words we can substitute 
some of the other sort, as " Providence," " Omnipo- 
tence," "Law," "Mind";— ''Humanity"— "Society," 
or even "Man," the force of duty is at once greatly 
weakened, and its claims retire into a remote distance. 

There is a present illustration of this in that which 
after religion and morals (and it can never really bo 
separated from them) is the greatest matter of 
thought for men ; that is, politics undor a free gov- 
ernment. In questions about laws and their admin- 
istration wo hear much now of " capital " and 
""labor." All the dissertations about the distress of 
the poor and danger to the public peace from this, 
sind all the speeches of those who have most to say 
in proposing changes of existing law, abound in 
these terms. The simple facts are that in every 
nation there are some men who are owners of 
property, and others who only live as they are 
employed by some of the former: that sometimes 
these wages are not enough to give a decent living 
%o the laborers and their families, or at least that 



$68 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

some of them say so; that even at times some can 
say, "No man hath hired us," or they refuse to 
work at all, unless for higher wages, or because the 
employers insist upon lower, and even beside this 
prevent any who are willing to work for what is 
offered, from taking their places — even threaten to 
take the owners' property and divide it among 
themselves. 

On the other hand the employing class are often 
so ostentatious and selfish in their expensive living, 
and so heartless about the sufferings of the poor, 
that they exasperate the anger of the other class 
and irritate their impatience and envy more than 
would be otherwise. And as the great fortunes are 
not usually the result of any merit, but of accidents 
of increased value (or even " heaped together " by 
overreaching and cruel hard dealing) of the present 
owners or their forefathers, a certain fierce sense of 
justice reinforces the rage with which men who have 
not food or clothes enough, regard the well-to-do. 
Thus, while the one set complain and threaten, the 
others denounce them as seeking to rob their betters, 
and so as enemies of peace and law. All this is said 
to be a "conflict between Labor and Capital." 

Now there are no such persons as these. There 
are even no organized societies of persons, named 
u Labor " and " Capital " which are contending. And 
yet the actual dispute is of living persons according 
to their interests and feelings. It is one of the 
incidents of the controversy that in modern times, 
man} 7 owners of property join together in partner- 



THE MISUSE AND MISCHIEF OP ABSTRACT TERMS. 369 

ships and stock companies which employ the labor- 
ers; and that the latter sometimes combine in 
M Trades Unions " and the like, so as to contend with 
effect against the power of wealth. On the other 
hand, too, there are now many more who own little 
tracts of land, and till them with their own labor, 
than was the case in earlier ages. Yet, after all, it 
is none the less a simple question about the rights 
and duties of men towards one another. The law of 
love forbids any to use the labor of another without 
a fair return, or to see him suffer in any way in 
order that we may enjoy ourselves. On the other 
hand, it forbids the poor to invade the sacred rights 
of property. It says, "Thou shalt not steal,'' and 
also, "Thou shalt not covet "-—thus requiring us all 
to be patient and contented. Human laws which 
proceed from this duty, and are meant to carry it out, 
are useful to some extent. But without that divine 
law and its personal dutj^ they can do no good 
whatever : the selfish cunning or violence of men 
will evade or pervert all their provisions. If personal 
duty is enough regarded, there will be no need of the 
laws whatever. 

But make of it all a "conflict of Labor and 
Capital, " and all attention is turned from what you 
and I ought to do, to observing the fight between 
these huge genii, and to curiosity about its result. 
Some set to work to write pamphlets or newspaper 
articles. Preachers take sides with one or other of 
the combatants, or impartially and safely belabor 
them both. Legislators make speeches, appoint 



870 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

committees and pass laws. This deceives everybody 
with a great appearance of wisdom and earnestness 
without reaching any man's sense of duty. Each 
one feels that he has done his part by making or 
hearing a discourse about "the relations of capital 
and labor," or helping to pass a law. It even dulls- 
what feeling of duty to God and man there was 
before. Many a one who directly or through the 
officers of a stock company has been "grinding thfr 
faces of the poor," and had some uneasy sense that 
this was wicked, dismisses this feeling after hearings 
a profound discourse of the Rev. Dr. A. about "Labor 
and Capital"; and so some good workman who has- 
been resisting the temptation to be furiously discon- 
tented and envious when he compared his anxious 
and narrow living with the purple and fine linen of ^ 
railroad president, gives up to the unhappy feeling 
after he has read the speech of the Hon. C. D., who 
informs him that he represents the angel Labors 
fighting against the demon Capital. 

The same immoral self-deceit now penetrates all our 
politics by means of party spirit, and is such & 
wicked treachery to truth and justice, and such an; 
affront to the Just One by whose name and authority 
our governments have any right to command obedi- 
ence, that wi?e men may well fear what will soon corner 
upon us as a people if it is not reformed. Allowing 
the most that can be said in favor of parties in a free 
nation, it is certain that truth and just dealing are^ 
the acts of individual men ; that falsehood, treachery, 
false swearing and other violations of law in its 



THE MI8TJSK AND MISCHIEF OP ABSTRACT TERMS. 871 

letter or intent are the sins of this and that man — 
Are so known and judged by God and should be by 
their fellow-men. 

But if evil-doers can lay such things off of themselves 
tipon their u great party, " if others who enjoy their 
party success by the same means can connive at it, 
and even their angry antagonists (from this evil 
fashion and a hope to succeed by like means in their 
turn) think only of abhorring and punishing the 
other "party," the moral sense of all is stupefied. 
Eight and wrong, in this very solemn, and in a sense 
<iivine, matter of law, become empty words to repre 
sent the selfish struggles of two sets of men for 
place. 

Thus might be seen the awful spectacle of men 
who lie, swear falsely, and greedily enjoy the pay 
and honor of high offices to which they have no 
right, getting to be the representatives and adminis- 
trators of sacred law by means of outrages upon 
that law. And then the only criminal is supposed 
to be that impersonal thing, one of " the two great 
parties/' while the actual guilty wretches are pun- 
ished — by not only enjoying the stolen pay and 
power, but by all "good citizens " calling upon 
them to pay their " respects" — religious bodies and 
journals making obeisance to these representatives of 
the " majesty of the law," and great crowds gathering 
to salute them with acclamations ! Finally, the little 
fraction of shame which evil-doers thus share with 
their " party " can be escaped at any time by a man's 
slipping away from his party under pretext of some 



872 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

"new issue, " and reappearing on the other side to 
u denounce " the very things he has abetted and 
profited by. 

All these are great results of the use of language 
in such a way as to hide from men their real duties 
and responsibilities. They are even more note- 
worthy as indications of spiritual tendencies which 
affect our spiritual welfare yet more directly. For 
we ought to return at last to what is of more conse- 
quence than all else, the common use of abstract 
words to obscure our personal knowledge of God. 
That this is the powerful tendency of the prevailing 
fashion of writing about " .Nature," "Mind," "Law," 
&c, has been sufficiently shown (see Chaps. I. and 
XVII. and App. F). I think I ought, however, to add 
this final expostulation with those religious writers 
who argue with much toil that God is a person and 
then sit down breathless and exhausted, yet as 
though they had achieved all that was needed. 
Whereas if they stop short with this they have not 
even proved that much. Nothing less than to see 
and make others see that He is the Person, can 
establish religious faith ; and this can never be done 
along with the personifying of " Nature " and the 
fatal concession of a .."Keisn of Law." 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 373 



APPENDIX G. 

A MEDITATION UPON THE ETERNITY AND SELF- 
EXISTENCE OF GOD AND THE MODERN 
THEORY OF " CONSCIENCE. " 

I CANNOT remember when I did riot bear and 
think of God. Some such things which I 
heard I now perceive were not wisely said to me, 
and my own thoughts of the Great One have not 
always, no, nor, as I suppose, really ever been entirely 
true. The more I do think and really know, the 
more certain this is to me. Thus I never began to 
have thought of Him or grew to have wiser thought 
by reasonings about my own consciousness or about 
"causation," So also I cannot imagine that the 
suggestion of Him as unseen, yet everywhere — that 
He is infinitely above me, yet I always in his pres- 
ence, — that he was " before all worlds," and me as an 
insignificant part of this Creation " by the word of 
his power," — T cannot imagine that this thought 
once entering my mind, could ever leave that mind 
as if it had never been there, or my thoughts about 
" the things that are seen," merely what they would 
be without that. Nor can I conceive that the first 
man's child (and so each successive generation fol- 
lowing) could ever fail to have that thought of God 
in some guise or disguise, mentioned to it among 
the first things spoken to its opening soul, and thus 
have the world around it and all life different from 
what it would be without any thought of God. 
82 



374 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

For I see plainly by all my own experience, that 
it is in this sense that " the Heavens declare the 
glory of God," and that "the invisible things of 
Him from the (time of the) Creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made, even His eternal power and Godhead." It is 
just in proportion as I already know of Him that I 
behold Him in all things. I can — I blush to confess 
it — see all these glorious things without a thought of 
"His handiwork " — that is if I am all intent upon 
what is worldly, even in the most innocent sense. 
And so in degree as I habitually, or from some 
special suggestion (of my reading, worship, or 
another's words) have just been thinking of Him, do 
I see Him in all other things visible or invisible. 
Much more then would man never have discovered 
religion, and still less the true religion merely by 
what he saw or thought. 

But now giving myself up to true thoughts of God 
according to all this light of the true religion and 
knowledge of His works, I see — I feel more and 
more the immense distance between myself with all 
that I admire, and Him. The things of beauty or 
power, of sweetness or light, of truth or love, in 
which I exult most with consciousness, or that most 
attract me from without — all are far — so far below 
Him. The more I see of this greatest truth, the 
more profound becomes my humility. It also ex. 
poses my own perverseness, which must be odious to 
Him whose favor is more than mere life to me, and 
plunges me into deeper humiliation. All that is best 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OP GOD. 375 

in me then revolts at the thought of false religion — 
that God is only like an all-powerful man, or that this 
Divine power is divided up among a number of such 
imperfect persons, or that there is no person, God, — 
that this word is only a word to represent all being^ 
life and motion. 

So my wisest thoughts all tell me that not only is 
He much more a person than I, of thought, will, and 
affection, — not only more than all this in man without 
his faults at his best, — but that His eternal life and 
power are something to which nothing we, nor any 
other of His creatures, nor all of His Creation to- 
gether, can have any likeness. Yet He tells me in 
His Word and repeats in the very person of the 
God-man who has come to restore the blessedness of 
the first Creation, what He told us of that in the 
beginning, that He " created man in His own image." 

We might indeed pervert this w r onderful truth and 
abuse this vast blessing of nature and knowledge, 
by arguing from it that God is altogether such as 
we are, and that we know what He does by reason- 
ing of what men do. This is as much against my 
real reason, and against His Word, as for me to make 
unto myself a graven image of a man for my religion, 
and fall down and worship that. 

But my soul, so little and weak, and in this com- 
parison even more of such evil will, wearies and faints 
in all its reasonings. " Such knowledge is too won- 
derful for me : it is high : I cannot (by my own 
thoughts) attain unto it." Then it finds rest and 
new strength in His own words to me about Himself. 



376 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

And does He say that I am to understand His will, 
His works, His essential life, by studying Hi& 
" image " in myself? No ; not once have I any such 
suggestion from Him ; I am even forbidden to do this 
as a presumptuous and self-deceiving folly. All that 
I thus learn of " His Eternal Power and Godhead," 
discloses a Person who is far above even our greatest 
words of expression. Among such I now array 
before my memory these : 

" I Am that I Am." " He spake, and it was done." 
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all 
things, to whom be glory forever." ''All things were 
created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all 
things, and by Him all things consist." " The Blessed 
and only Potentate." " Upholding all things by the 
word of His power." " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to 
receive glory and honor and power; for Thou hast 
created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and 
were created." " I am the Alpha and Omega, the 
Beginning and the End — the First and the Last." 
Then my soul rests in this most glorious and happy 
truth, that all things are good merely because they 
are His will : especially that He is my ultimate and 
all-including good, because He has made me to love 
Him with all my heart. 

But if some fellow-man say to me that this is not 
enough for his obedience unless he can also believe 
that what is commanded is true, just and kind; or 
that if he had reason from " eternal principles " ta 
believe this, it would be as good or better ground for 
his obedience than the mere will of God ; then I ask 



TIIE ETERNITY AND SELF EXISTENCE OF GOD. 377 

with surprise, what can be true, just or kind, except 
as it is God's will ? How came you to have such 
thoughts except as He chose to make you what you 
are ? Did some u Supreme Being " before Him estab- 
lish " eternal principles " and then make Him subject 
to them? Or did lie find Himself from all eternity 
surrounded by and subject to them ? Then they 
rather than He are " the First and the Last." How 
are you wiser in this notion than those who will have 
it that God found Himself always in His eternity with 
eternal matter (and its laws) about Him, and so is 
not creator, but only " contriver " and " adjuster" of 
that which has as much self-existence as He ? Nay, 
there is something nobler, greater, and more real 
than an " eternal principle," and that is the Eternal 
Person, of whose all-including will such principles 
are but instances. 

■ Even now, following this supreme truth, if He 
show me His will in His Word that I shall believe 
in "eternal principles" upon which my duty rests, 
and not merely upon that blessed will, I will submit 
what seems my highest reason to that. But no. 
"The commandments (ponder that word) — the will % 
the love of God : " these are the simplest and the 
perfect expression of all my duty. If I may "go 
back " of that, then my questioning will be that 
which is sometimes related of a little child who has 
been told that God made all things : " And who made 
God ? " I doubt if even the thoughtlessness of child- 
hood ever asked this in simplicity. But even if so, 
it accepted with satisfied assent, this true answer: 



378 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

"No one: God always was; it is enough for us to 
know that He made everything else." In the One 
Eternal Person and in Him alone we all alike find 
the ultimate fact and the ultimate reason of all. 
We say God's Will ; but really His will in action is 
His Eternal Self, as His will for my obedience is 
Himself for me to love and enjoy "as long as I have 
any being." 

The Modern Theory of "Conscience." — All truth 
known is God's word ; all truth done is God's will. 
Among the deviations from this simplicity of true 
religion into which the self-confident reasonings of 
modern Christendom have long been straying, until 
these are taken for granted as a part of the Christian 
faith, is this notion of conscience as " a tribunal set 
up within each man " — " the voice of God in his 
soul/' etc., etc. This deserves a very thorough dis- 
cussion more complete than is possible here. Yet it 
will be very useful and hardly dispensable in the 
present work, to give what follows, holding myself 
in readiness at any suitable time to supply omissions, 
and state more fully much in which I have given 
results rather than researches. 

In the first place let us consider that there is an 
ethical system of the Holy Gospels which is faultless 
and complete. This is, as Our Lord most plainly 
teaches, that God has made man to do His will in 
perfect love, and has informed him of that will from 
the first by His word: that in fact we are all averse 
to this truth and happiness; and that He came to 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF- EXISTENCE OP GOD. 379 

restore the truth perfectly, to restore us by pardon 
and a new birth to that perfect love. 

When He describes His own life in this world, 
" without sin," He makes no mention of " conscience," 
but of " doing the will of God." When He describes 
goodness in other men, it is " whosoever shall do the 
will of God," and the like. When He tells how men 
know what they ought to do, it is " God's words," 
or "the commandments of God," not as of some 
" inward light" of a "conscience." He says, "I am 
the light of the world ;" just as it was also declared 
of Him : " This is that Light which coming into the 
world enlighteneth every man." [And yet Christian 
scholars, seizing upon the mistaken rendering of our 
English Bible, have inverted this to prove their false 
notion of conscience.] " This is the condemnation, 
that light is come into the world, and men loved 
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were 
evil." True light then is not something within us 
as an essential part of each man's soul : it must 
come to us all from without — " from above." 

So, on His way to the grave of Lazarus, He says 
expressly, that the man who tries to walk without 
this heavenly illumination, " stumbleth, because 
there is no light in him" And as before the Sun of 
Righteousness rose here the heavenly light of the 
first revelation to men still lingered as stars shine at 
midnight, so the glorious Gospel was not to be lost 
to us by His Death and Ascension ; " but the Com- 
forter which is the Holy Ghost, etc., He shall teach 
you all things," etc. Do not the zealous Christians 



380 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

who make the notion of " conscience " in each man 
which is the c( voice of God" to him, an important 
part of their religion, usurp for it what belongs to 
the Third Holy One ? 

It is only as plainly taught by the Word of God 
that I would venture thus to correct the mistake of 
so many learned and devout writers, and which 
indeed by their authority is so universally allowed, 
that this argument will at first find scarce any 
approval, and general astonishment if not censure. 
Yet some of the ablest advocates of this personal 
*' conscience " unconsciously concede that it is not 
what Holy Writ teaches, as when Dean Mansel (Lim. 
of Eelig. Thought, p. 202) speaks of Bishop Butler 
as he who has " most contributed to establish the 
supreme authority of Conscience in man." The 
writer of the article " Conscience " in Blunt's Theol. 
Diet, admits that the idea was unknown to the most 
intellectual people of the old world ; and then assum- 
ing to find it in Holy Scripture, so miserably fails in 
such citations as to strengthen the proof of the 
opposite which I have already given. And now 
"Eev. Joseph Cook" with a great display of all 
sorts of "ologies" to convince applauding crowds 
that the unbelievers cannot use these wonderful 
things to triumph over him, with this makes the 
most extravagant assumptions about "conscience," 
and the most impassioned appeals to it, as if it were 
the corner-stone of Christian faith, instead of a meta- 
physical fiction " rather repugnant " thereto. 

Before we proceed with a further examination of 



TOE ETERNITY AND SELF EXISTENCE OP GOD. 381 

the Holy Scriptures, let me make sure of not being 
misunderstood. Bisbop Butler is greatly to bo 
valued and reverenced for bis incomparable Analogy 
and Sermons. That he erred in this theory of " Con- 
science " is a small matter compared with his great 
merit, especially in one who lived in that coldly and 
unspiritually intellectual age, which could not but 
influence all its writers, though he broke away so 
much from its stupors and illusions. It is just to 
him however to say that he did not carry the notion 
to the positiveness and elaboration which now pre- 
vails, and as its present champions impute it all to 
him. His masterly caution and far-seeing wisdom 
of argument are to be seen all through the three 
" Sermons upon Human Nature." He almost always 
speaks of Cl reflection or conscience," once even of it 
as only " reflection. " This shows that it was still in 
his mind a question whether he was not (as he was) 
making of the use of our minds and wills upon moral 
truth, instead of other knowledge or choice, a separate 
faculty, or even another person within and beside 
our spirits. His followers and admirers have no 
doubts and make no such qualifications. 

Nor do I for a moment deny that elsewhere than 
in the Gospels the English word " conscience " is 
found in our version of the New Testament. To 
that we will soon give especial attention, and see if 
it reveals the present notion and use of that word, 
though as has been shown, Our Lord said nothing of 
it in His personal ministry. Yet by this first inquiry 
we are much better fitted to enter upon the other. 



382 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

We can best understand the precepts of our dut} r 
and the allusions to our relations to God with 
which the writings of the Apostles abound, by the 
great and simple truth of all things which their 
Lord and ours uttered as He went about doing good. 
It is far more probable that they will thus more 
fully illustrate and give details of the principles He ; 
has first revealed, than that only by them were those 
chief principles of our moral nature disclosed. 
What a low conception that would be of the Light 
of the world? What blindness and dumbness about 
the chief things in man's nature on the part of Him 
whom, not by inspiration of another, but of eternal 
and creative vision, "knew what was in man," We 
cannot escape from this conclusion by saying that 
He announced the absolute truth, but left it to His 
servants to state it in " a scientific " form. For we 
are assuming that to be primary truth of w T hich He 
made no utterance. 

We may now say. briefly and in general of all the 
passages in the Gospels and Acts in which the Eng- 
lish word conscience occurs, that it is of course of no 
authority at all except as it represents the word 
divinely inspired in the original language. The 
Greek word of the original is the same in each of 
these, GuveidrjGK;. It is a well-known word of evi- 
dent derivation, and which had had a fixed meaning 
in that language for five hundred years. Why then 
should we not translate it in that sense ? That i& 
the fair way, unless for some very good reason, as 
that it is without meaning in that use, or the like, 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF EXISTENCE OF GOD. 383 



we must suppose that St. John and St. Luke meant 
something else. And this I suppose is just what our 
translators meant to do ; for conscience in English 
(conscientia in Latin,) at first meant just that. 

Thus <Tuve(drj(7tc in classic Greek means simply 
self-knowledge, the perception of what passes or has 
passed in our own thoughts, whether it be about our 
opinion of some one else's character, our notice of 
some passing event, or our reflection upon some 
choice which we have now to make, or our recollec- 
tion and judgment of something that we did once, or 
that some one else did. This is also just what 
conscientia meant in Latin, and conscience in French 
and English, and for which we have at a later 
period provided the term consciousness to replace the 
former word, now entirely appropriated by a new 
notion in regard to men's thoughts about their duty. 

Evidently then, conscience first included all our 
notice and recollection of our thoughts, whether 
about matters of knowledge, of choice and action in 
things merely expedient, or of truth and duty to 
God and to man. As it included so much, we might 
render it in different cases by various equivalent 
expressions, as "self-knowledge," " inward thought," 
" self-judgment," " reflection," &c. (This last even 
Bishop Butler uses as equivalent, and to bring it 
outside of our prepossessions in the present use of 
terms according to prevailing notions, we will also 
try its sense in the three passages of St. John's 
Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles by also substitu- 
ting that, to see whether we must find a new mean- 



384 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

ing for ffwstdrjffu;, because its force in usual Greek 
would convey no meaning, or an evidently false one. 
And here I w T ould remark that nothing can be more 
unsafe (not to say uncandid) than in our understand- 
ing of the New Testament, to depart from the real 
meaning of Greek words in other writings, whenever 
that would give a sense contrary to our doctrinal 
prepossessions, and set up a "New Testament Greek ,f 
to accord with them. Who could not do this, and 
upon this sacred authority contend for any notions, 
instead of searching these Holy Scriptures for ivhat 
to believe f) 

The English of these three passages thus given is 
as follows : " And they, &c, being convicted by their 
own self-knowledge (or reflection)," &c. " I have lived 
in all good self-knowledge (reflection, observation 
and memory of my own conduct,) unto this day." 
"And herein do I exercise myself to have a good 
self-knowledge (reflection and recollection of my 
conduct) toward God and toward man." That is an 
entirely intelligible and natural statement, and is 
evidently what was meant to be said. It agrees 
-with the simple truth of Our Lord's teaching as we 
have just studied. He addressed us as having intelli- 
gence and free will, and having been made to apply 
these above all, and including all (other things only 
existing to promote that end) to know and love Him 
and do His will, in which is contained the just and 
generous love of all our fellow-men. He nowhere 
tells us that beside the power of thinking and acting 
in virtue of which we are persons at all, we have 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF EXISTENCE OF GOD. 385 

another knowing and choosing faculty applied to 
our duties, and which itself tells us these duties, 
rewards or punishes us as we behave, is a sort of other 
person of ourselves, and yet arbitrates among our 
other thoughts, ought to be first and always obeyed, 
is our very selves, and yet is even the Divine Person 
Himself speaking to us — all this which modern 
ethics tell us of, Our Lord Jesus Christ says nothing 
of in the Gospels, but speaks to men as if having 
simply a mind to know His truth as well as other 
knowledge, a heart to love God as well as other 
persons, a will to choose in these as well as in the 
inferior things of life. Thus the condemning self- 
knowledge of the wicked Pharisee, or the acquitting 
self-knowledge of St. Paul, proves nothing about the 
supposed " conscience " of the metaphysicians. 

The same general observations apply to the use of 
the term <jwveidr}<n<; (conscience) in the Epistles. In 
more than half of them we have but to substitute 
the primary meaning, as self-knowledge, " conscious- 
ness v or "reflection/' and we have a clear and the 
evidently true meaning of the writer. Of some 
others, w r hich we will examine in detail, this may 
not at first be so clear. But some things are plain 
from the first: (1) that there is in the Epistles no 
such precise account of conscience in their sense, as 
some modern books contain, or of any such separate 
faculty of man under any other term. (2) There is 
no such precept as all these contain, that a man 
ought to " obey the dictates of his conscience." They 
speak of us just as Our Lord does in the Gospels, as 
33 



bbb THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW." 

able to know God and His commands, and that all 
duty and goodness is to love Him and do His will or 
" glorify " Him ; not suggesting to us to look beyond 
this Divine will for some " eternal principle.," or 
listen to any self-teaching of a "conscience," but 
" hear the Word of God and keep it." 

But how then, some may say, are we to understand 
w T hat St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Eomans of 
those who are "a law unto themselves, etc. — their 
conscience also bearing witness, etc," and in the first 
Epistle to the Corinthians viii-x. about regarding 
other men's " consciences" in respect to idol worship? 
So far as the word in question is concerned, whoever 
will carefully construe it in all these passages by its 
simple and original meaning, will find the difficulty 
disappear. But on the other hand, if St. Paul did 
distinctly teach us of a separate part of man's spirit- 
ual nature which infallibly teaches every soul of our 
race its duty, and whose " dictates " ought to be 
instantly and implicitly obeyed by each one of us, 
that is a great matter of religion. At least it proves 
that either his " ethical teaching" was different 
from Our Lord's, or that we must add to the latter a 
fact and principle of which it was unconscious, and 
which seems to have with it no agreement. What 
adds to the seriousness of this question, is that the 
great Bishop Butler has chosen that sentence of St. 
Paul as the motto and even foundation proof of that 
argument for conscience in the present received 
sense which all others have followed. (Not that it 
was not a received notion long before his time, as I 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 387 

may trace its rise in another place; but Butler is the 
great formulator and authority for it, the citation of 
whose words is supposed to close all arguments.) 

If the passage of St. Paul does affirm the statement 
in question, it must do so in express and plain words, 
or at least by necessary inference. That is, it must 
not fairly admit of any other rendering which does 
not contain that statement, but rather accords with 
the opposite opinion. We have already seen that 
there is such another rendering which I make bold 
to say will bear any examination and only appear 
the more as what the writer meant. But if it were 
only of two such interpretations of equal merit, it 
would deserve the preference as according more with 
the whole tenor of the rest of God's book, and 
especially with the simple and perfect teaching of 
our duty by Our Lord in the Gospels. 

Eeferring to Appendix B for the entire passage 
of the Epistle to the Eomans preceding, we come to 
the very verses upon which the common notion of 
conscience has been anchored, as stated in the Book 
of God, especially notable as the text of Bishop 
Butler's second and third sermons on Human Nature : 
"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do 
by nature the things contained in the law, these 
having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which 
show the work of the law written in their hearts, 
their conscience also bearing witness, and their 
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing 
one another, in the day when God shall judge the 
secrets of men," etc. (ii. 14-16). 



388 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

The first thing to be observed, is that at least the 
chief reference is not at all to the present judgment 
of men, but to " the day of wrath and revelation " at 
the end of time. The second is that this is not said 
of all men, Jews and Gentiles alike, or even of all the 
latter, but only of such of them as " do the works of 
the law," or perhaps, if there be any such persons. If 
it be said that nevertheless if there be such a con- 
science in any man, it is a just inference that it is in 
all men, that is quite another thing. It certainly is 
not near as strong in proof of such a revelation as if 
it were said in so many words or their equivalent:. 
" Every soul of man has a conscience, which is the 
voice of God within him telling him what is hia 
duty on every occasion, and which it is his first duty 
to obey." 

So Bishop Butler in his second sermon makes a 
serious mistake in saying : " Every man is naturally 
a law unto himself, that every man may find within 
himself the rule of right and obligation to follow it. 
This St. Paul affirms in the words of the text" &c. It 
does not occur to him that St. Paul affirms some- 
thing else, and that it is for him to show, if he can,, 
that the Apostle's words involve his proposition. 

Bishop Butler also in this account of Human 
Nature fails to take notice of so important a fact as 
the Fall of man, by which none of the following, 
generations are born as the first man was made. 
Not only is no true account of our moral nature 
possible without stating this wonderful duplicity of 
it, an original ideal and perfect nature, and an inher- 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 389 

ited and actual degraded nature, but that true 
account would have led him to collate his text with 
the other parts of St. Paul's great argument, espe- 
cially its conclusion that " all have sinned," &c. He 
might then even have preferred that other construc- 
tion at which I have hinted, which makes the four- 
teenth verse read rather thus : " Even if the nations 
(heathen) which were without that written statement 
of the will of God which the Jews had in the law 
given by Moses, should of themselves perform what 
is written in that law, it would be no less that same 
will of God obeyed, His law known to them by the 
original tradition, and recalled to them by all of life 
around and within them, without a word of writing, 
and however indistinctly the thought of the One 
True God may have become.'' 

But even if, in spite of all the terrible words of 
truth that have preceded, of how all heathen were 
" given over to a reprobate mind" (I. 28) — and all 
the universal conclusions in the III. chapter of this 
reasoning, as that " there is none righteous ; no not 
one," &c, we allow that he asserts as a fact that 
some Gentiles "do the things contained in God's 
law," we must admit that we have not yet that 
statement of " conscience " upon which all Christian 
ethicists now insist. To ascertain whether it is 
fairly involved in these words, and learn all that God 
teaches us by them, let us sound them anew and care- 
fully. Let us notice first that "the law " as spoken 
of here, is not precisely the whole duty of man, but 
a certain statement in words given to the Israelites. 



390 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Now if some other great communities of men, ra edvrj, 
the nations, (it is not said of individual " Gentiles/') 
do by nature the things contained in the law (some of 
the duties which are mentioned in the law of Moses), 
these not having the law, (that written statement of 
God's will) are a law unto themselves." Their own 
thoughts furnish them with that law or statement 
of God's will which the Jews had in a written Word. 
So far we are all agreed. 

But let us look farther and see what certainly is 
not included in this. First, it does not teach that 
each soul can make its own duty. That is decided 
by God's will and not man's. Then this is not said 
of individuals:* "they (the nations) having not the 
law (of the sacred nation) are a law unto themselves ; 
their laws, institutions and religions, false, imperfect, 
immoral even as they have become in that dreadful 
descent from original knowledge of God which is 
described in the first chapter, these still contain 
enough of the primeval truth to convict them of sin 
in the Judgment Day. And as the following verse 
says, with these go the thoughts of each soul ; its 
idea of Divine power and of obedience to that in 
right doing ; thoughts which have come down from 
the days when the Lord God talked with the first 
man, and to which all man's nature and destiny so 

*It is true that a secondary sense of this word was common among the 
Greek-speaking Jews, so that they sometimes spoke of individuals of 
41 the nations 1 ' by that term, or ''Gentiles 11 as the A. V. then renders 
it. But a practical scrutiny of the use of the word in the N. T. will con- 
vince any candid person that it does not need such a departure from the 
ordinary meaning once in ten times. A genuine search after the divine 
meaning here cannot afford to leave this matter unnoticed, and so learn 
something from the fact that !St. Paul speaks here not of Graikos or 
ethnikoi, hut of " ?a sdvq." 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF* EXISTENCE OF GOD. 391 

respond and correspond that they can never die out 
among men, as the youngest child hears them 
uttered around it, and takes them at once into all 
its thoughts. 

How then does this " law unto themselves/' this 
■statement of God's will and their duty, come to those 
who have not a verbal statement of it, such as that 
favored people had to whom were committed the 
written " oracles of God "? Now certainly if we are 
told anywhere else in God's Word that He had made 
man with a special faculty called " conscience," or 
any other name you please, which invariably and 
perfectly tells each one of our race his duty ; whose 
" dictates " he is bound to hear and obey, by which 
means he will always do right, then we should 
probably refer this " law unto ourselves " to that 
faculty. But no one claims to cite any such passage. 
On the contrary, those who affirm such a faculty, if 
called upon for proof of it from Holy Writ, repair 
only as Bishop Butler does, to these very words of 
St. Paul which we are now studying. 

Do they say it? "Yes," says some one; "for 
they certainly mean something, and what else can it 
be ? " That is a very questionable way of finding 
the meaning of God's Word. Can we have any 
reverence or confidence in it unless we think of it as 
shining with its own light and not meaning some- 
thing merely because no one suggests any other? 
But we are in no such quandary. I have already 
alluded to, and will now more fully state, an account 
of this law of the Gentiles unto themselves, which, 



$92 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." 

unlike the popular theory of " conscience," is entirely 
in accord with the rest of God's Word, with all this 
very argument of St. Paul, with our best reason so 
far as we can apply it to such matters, and, above 
all, with the personal teaching of Our Lord and 
Saviour about the whole duty of man. 

The very purpose of man's existence being to love 
God with all his soul, that purpose taken up by 
human will becomes the greatest of sentiments, 
and finds its ambition and action in doing all His 
will. That will was made known to the first of our 
race in direct words ; and all the nature of man, i. e. 
his constitution as God made him, responded to this 
with assent and with constantly reminding him of it, 
just as the knowledge of the " eternal power and 
Godhead," given at the same time, was testified to 
and recalled in each man's thoughts by the sight of 
" the things that were made " (i. 20, &c). Thus, 
though the whole race fell from the first innocence 
and piety, while one small nation had a " law" given 
to it of true religion and true duty, the others not 
thus favored were not by this relieved from that 
great judgment of God upon all, either in his present 
government or in that last day of time when " before 
Him shall be gathered all nations " (izavra ra edvrf). 

The tradition and memory of even this piety and 
virtue, if they will pause in passion and selfishness to 
give any thought to them, are a declaration (that is, 
law) to them of their duty, by which they shall be 
judged — commended if they obey, condemned if they 
disobey. But alas, the latter is the universal fact 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF EXISTENCE OP GOD. 393 

with them all as well as with Jews judged by "the 
law"; so that if any of either class are not ruined 
forever, it will not be from man's merit, but from 
God's mere mercy. 

The phrase " do by nature " is just as intelligible, 
and more so, in this interpretation as in the other. 
Nature {(pvai<j} is evidently here used in the general 
method of the New Testament to denote the consti- 
tution of creatures as God has made them — what 
they are by birth, or that which is their usual way of 
action or existence. Man, as we have before noticed, 
is that anomalous creature who has now in fact a 
nature contrary to his original nature. He is now 
born, not as he was first made, in the Divine image 
of purity and love, but perverse and ungodly, unless 
by the great miracle of new creation in Christ Jesus 
Our Lord he is born again to pardon and holiness. 
Yet in the midst of that ruin of his fall there 
remains always Some knowledge of Divine things 
and some sense of the excellence of virtue. This is 
what St. Paul recognized when he said to all the 
Athenians who gathered to hear him, Epicureans as 
well as Stoics or Platonists, orthodox pagans as well 
as speculating philosophers : " Whom therefore ye 
ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." 

So when any one of these acts according to this 
knowledge in its most imperfect form, he is said to 
do this " by nature." And so when the people more 
favored than others in having also a written law of 
God looks down upon the other nations, it is re- 
minded that all men alike are guilty before God; 



394 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW.'* 

these Israelites as convicted by that very Holy 
Scripture of which they boast, the others by those 
unwritten traditions and memories which, even with 
all allowance for the decays and corruptions of 
ages, they so fearfully violate. 

The following words complete this sense and make 
it more clear: "Which show the work of the law 
(the same effect as of a written law) written (not the 
law, but the effect; for it is ypaizTov, not ypanroo) in 
their hearts (their memories and thoughts), their 
consciousness (self-judgment) also bearing witness, and 
their thoughts among themselves accusing or else 
excusing one another, in the day when God shall 
judge the secrets of men," &c. I would also call the 
attention of careful students to the singular number of 
"conscience," whether or not as compared with the 
plural of " thoughts," and ask them whether this is 
not of itself almost decisive as to the correctness of 
my rendering. 

Why is not what has now been given the true and 
natural meaning of the whole passage ? It is accor- 
dant with the fact of an original and universal pure 
religion. It is perfectly in subjection to that perfect 
doctrine of man's duty which our Lord Himself 
taught in Palestine. Why then interpret St. Paul 
otherwise in order that he may introduce into Chris- 
tian belief another notion of a Divine voice set in 
each man's soul by original creation, to obey the 
" dictates " of which is his first and perfect duty ? 
Does it not seem strange to those who believe this 
that we have nowhere in the Word of God that 



THE ETEHNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 395 

precept with which all our modern ethics abound : 
"Thou shalt obey the dictates of thy conscience"? 
Will any one meet this question as all the challenges 
of the silence of Holy Scripture about "natural law," 
&c., are met, by saying that the Bible was not 
meant to teach good morals? Compare this with 
the thousand voices of the Holy Book which most 
fully and yet simply command us to obey the voice, 
the will of God. 

If I have shown that the usual notion of conscience 
is not found here, this virtually carries with it all 
the other passages in the Epistles where the term 
appears. Any one can substitute consciousness, 
self-knowledge, or some of the other real meanings 
of <ruvsLdr)<jt<j in any such sentence, and find the real 
sense of the writer. Even in the few cases where 
our prepossessions would still obscure this true 
sense, did time allow, I could now remove the diffi- 
culty. But I would particularly notice that part of 
St. Paul's I. Epistle to the Corinthians (viii.-x.) in 
which he discusses the matter of eating meat which 
has been sacrificed in a heathen temple. In this the 
term in question occurs eight times, and among 
these in such phrases as " weak conscience " and 
"conscience' sake." In substance the wiser Chris- 
tian is advised to forego something which he has a 
right to do, not in " obeying the dictates of his own 
conscience," but on account of the other man's. 
This has no meaning as of one's own conscience 
being for each man the voice of God in his soul and 
the certain law of his duty j but is plain enough of 



896 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OP LAW." 

one's self-judgment, which may be more or less 
erroneous. 

The discrepancy of this notion with all other truth 
about man's nature as Our Lord in His personal 
teaching recognized it, and as it is quite clearly and 
simply implied in the other Scriptures, is a decisive 
objection. With this agrees our wisest conscious- 
ness, that we are compounded of " body, soul and 
spirit" — the material, the living, and the spiritual. 
With this last part man can know truth of various 
kinds, and exercise will and love upon various ob- 
jects. But knowledge and choice about God and 
about duty are the highest spiritual actions, are 
those for which indeed the others exist. To call 
this use of our intelligence, another part or faculty of 
our nature, and fasten upon it the term " conscience," 
is no wiser than it would be to call the knowledge of 
pains and dangers our u ^science," and that of bodily 
pleasures and desires our "a&science," and divide 
the soul up into that many parts. Indeed we have 
no right to stop there. Let us suppose as many 
-" faculties " as there are things that a man may 
know or choose. The prevailing notion of conscience 
is thus plainly a gratuitous violation of that just 
principle which Sir William Hamilton calls " the law 
of parcimony." 

Then also this notion obscures, if it does not 
-directly contradict, the truth that God the Holy 
Ghost does affect the souls of men directly, both 
enlightening them with truth and inclining or moving 
them to do right. If the imagined "conscience " is 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 397 

such a divine voice and influence in all men alike, 
and a part of their natural constitution, what need 
and what place for being moved by the Holy Ghost? 
We might even ask what use of any Word of God, 
and put the question which St. Paul supposes of his 
opposer, " What advantage then has the Jew " (or the 
Christian either) without being able to make his 
triumphant answer, " Much every way." 

Thus, Bishop Butler, though beyond all doubt a 
sound and firm believer in the Fall of Man, and in 
God the Holy Ghost, seems forced by his philosoph- 
ical theory to be silent about both in treating (even 
in sermons) of the moral goodness of men. I find a 
great contrast to this when this same St. Paul treats 
of the same matters in the I. Ep. to the Corinthians 
(chap, ii.) and says that "man's wisdom," his best 
thoughts according to his actual constitution — what 
God first made him modified by the Fall, is incom- 
petent to discover " the things of God." We have a 
power of knowing or apprehending them, but only 
as He reveals them. " For what man knoweth the 
things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in 
him : even so the things of God knoweth no man 
but the Spirit of God. Now, we have received, not the 
spirit of the world, i. e. our mere constitution — y,o<jfio<; y 
without words from God, but the spirit which is of 
God, that we might know the things which are 
freely given us of God." 

In this, as I apprehend, the greatest distinction is 
drawn between any such notions about Divine things 
and duties as we may elaborate by our intellectual 
34 



dy« THE REIGN OF GOD 3TOT "THE REIGN OF LAW. 

processes, and real knowledge of them given us in 
words by God Himself. The former are illusive and 
untrustworthy: the latter are truth. This indicates 
that human speech is necessary to true religion, and 
was given to us chiefly for that purpose; is neither 
one of the inventions of ages of human development, 
nor later than and only accidentally connected with 
the knowledge of God. Even our physical research 
seems to me to have disclosed this in the fact, if it be 
one, lately announced, that persons born deaf and 
dumb have no idea of God until they are taught 
some sort of language. 

Finally, the very discrepancies and extravagances 
of those who describe this imaginary conscience 
suggest error. As an instance of this, take the 
article " Conscience " in Blunt's Theolog. Diet., and 
besides almost everything which the Word of God 
assumes of the w T hole spirit of man, we are as- 
sured that "it is the absolute rule of right;" "it is 
the utterance of God's voice in the soul." How does 
that agree with the Hindoo's conscience as he obeys 
it by drowning his old father in the Ganges, or with 
Plato's when he, w T ith all his elevated thoughts 
(hardly if at all short of inspiration according to some 
of his Christian admirers,) sees no wrong in un- 
natural crimes? How can there then be a "per- 
verted conscience," as facts force these theorists to 
allow ? More than all, what can some expressions 
mean which they quote from Holy Scriptures as 
mentions of this: an " evil conscience," a " defiled 
conscience " and the like? All is plain enough of a 



THE ETERNITY AND SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD. 399 

conscience which is simply a man's consciousness or 
reflection upon his own thoughts. But what of an 
absolute rule of right, or, yet more, an " utterance 
of God's voice," which is " evil " or " defiled " ? 

But the chief, the decisive disproof of this notion 
is in what I have already adverted to, that the 
greatest teacher of morals who ever walked the 
earth, who, in an incomparable sense " knew what 
was in man," never told those who heard Him of 
their "consciences," and that they should obey 
their " dictates." He simply spoke to them of doing 
the will and obeying the commandments of God. 
He addressed men as simple spiritual persons who 
had the power of knowing and loving, which they 
ought to apply first and chiefly to God, and next to 
their fellow-men in duty. He never supposes or 
suggests to them the getting knowledge about this 
from within themselves, but from without and from 
above. He makes this comparison : " The eye is the 
lamp of the body." In what way ? Simply as an 
inlet for the light shining outside. He says still 
more expressly : " If any man walk in the day he 
stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this 
world." The glorious rays of the sun without him 
enter within. " But if a man walk in the night," if 
there be no heavenly knowledge to come to him, " he 
stumbleth, because there is no light in him. 1 ' 

I conclude then that the notion of a "natural 
religion " which men get otherwise than by words 
from God, and that of " conscience " as commonly 
understood, are not found or recognized in Holy 



400 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." 

Scripture, but are really contrary to it; that they 
began with some human speculations, were attached 
to some verbal resemblances in Scripture and pre- 
vailing among philosophic Christians, have been 
argued from such texts as these by certain great 
writers w T ho evidently did not first study the words 
of Scripture to find their meaning, but taking the 
philosophic theories for granted and to be the best 
antidote to infidel bad morals, assumed that they 
must be contained in those words of St. Paul, as they 
certainly are nowhere else in "God's Word written. " 
Our duty then is with them and other such errors, 
according to certain other words which that holy 
Apostle w 7 as inspired of God to write, to "cast down 
reasonings and every high thing that exalteth itself 
against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity 
every thought (even the most ambitious speculations 
of the greatest men) to the obedience of Christ. 11 



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